Mars Needs Windex (Space, Comedy - IC) - Dead

[Main Nation Ministry]

Wade Watts

Wade opened his eyes to the most annoying song he thought was the most annoying in the whole galaxy. Even though, he didn't go to the bar, since technically the laws of America applied directly towards his planet Creos. He had to wait 2 years till he can get that sweet bitter taste in his mouth. However, last night, he decided to down himself a carton of chocolate milk. It wasn't so bad, though waking up in 4:47 in the morning was a nightmare. He got out of his bed and put on his glasses. The annoying music was playing in his clock, but it was better than an alarm clock that played a generic nature sound effect that gotten louder every minute you ignore it. The poor person who would sleep in the same room as a heavy sleeper with that alarm clock has to be honored as a martyr. Now to get on his uniform. Putting it on, he started to put on his Sun Command jacket.

Ah, Sun Command. The show that might have ended a world or two. Sucks that the fan base is now mindless animals that roam the toxic waste dumps of fandom. Wade's jacket has the Sun Command logo on the back, but Wade had a large sticker that read B-Jac on the right sleeve. He got the jacket from GalaxaCon which was hosted on Creos. He had to pay about 200 merits from that thing. Next was his gloves that he brought on the ship. They weren't part of B-Jac, but they were his favorite rubber gloves to use. Now all he had to do was get out of the door, looking professional then-

Then he had a cover of "Never Gonna Give You Up" playing as his door opened. "Prankbot!" Wade said, annoyed. "Gnrk. It doesn't matter." Wade said, as he walked towards the Janitorial Main Room. "Alright. I'm here. Ready for duty!" Wade said, trying to look professional as a McDoggers worker on minimum wage.

[Talchyon]

The B-Jacs Janitorial Meeting at 5:00 a.m.
Lt. Flo

As the groggy and hung-over cleaning crew members entered the room and gathered, an annoyed-looking, heavy set woman with a short buzz cut hairstyle in the B-Jacs official uniform stood at the front of the meeting hall and harumphed. Tapping on a mike that was turned on 50 decibels louder than it should have, the lady said,

"Good morning, fellow members of the Burger Janitorial and Cleanup Services. Goodness, that's loud. Chuckie, turn it down some. Thanks. Today is the first day for some of you. Congratulations on your prestigious assignment. Some people look down on cleaners. Some people think janitors are lousy. But we know otherwise! No matter what your station in life is, a person who does it efficiently is a person who can be proud! I want you to be proud and efficient janitors. And that begins today! Chuckie, you need to turn it back up. Just a little. Stop! Right there. That should be good."

The lady harumphed, and continued. "I realize some of you are hung over right now. You will have to overcome that. Do not let it affect your job! You are still responsible for making sure this ship is presentable. There will be efficiency! There will be cleanliness!"

Most of the room had either dozed off to sleep, or were thinking murderous thoughts as they glared at the woman who had called this awful meeting for this time of the day. The many who were hung over pressed their hands to their foreheads and tried to will away their migraines, but to no effect.

Speaking again, the lady said, "I am Lt. Flo, your superior officer. I am in charge of the Burger Janitorial and Cleanup Services. You will address me as 'Sir, yes sir.' You also may address me as 'Lt.' Do that, do your job, wear your uniform according to code," frowning as she glanced out at the decidedly out-of-code uniform violations that practically everyone wore, "...and everything should be fine."

Just then, a clunky looking robot missing one of its hands rolled onto the stage on its quiet treads. He waved with his good hand. The lady continued, "You all know Chuckie, our robotic assistant. He's the one who gave you that lovely wake-up call this morning. Let's give him a round of applause." Lt. Flo started clapping, and she was the only one. Nonplussed, she returned to the introduction. "Chuckie is our all-purpose cleaning knowledge machine. If you are doing a cleanup job incorrectly, he has the database and indexes to know how to do the job correctly. And he will happily tell you. Furthermore, Chuckie comes equipped with everything needed to clean up a starship. If your machine breaks and Chuckie is near, he can take your machine's place. How about that! Chuckie is a superior officer too. Any command he gives you, treat as if it was a command coming from me. And listen to him. He has good advice! Chuckie, if you want to say a few words..."

Chuckie rolled over to the mike and spoke into it.

"Greetings. I am Chuckie, or the Cybernetic Human-User Cleanup Knowledge Issue Examiner. I will be monitoring your progress at cleaning. Oh, and if you happen to come across my missing right hand, alert me to its location. It is a long story and it does not need to be mentioned here.

Gwen, in the audience, muttered under her breath. "Yeah, his psychotic practical joker of an A.I. detached the limb and hid it somewhere on the ship, just to make Chuckie look like a fool."

Chuckie looked at Gwen and said,

"I heard that. And you are only partially right. My A.I. is not psychotic at all. It functions within perfectly sane parameters.

But just then, something happened that was completely unexpected.

Geria Trick
Oh Dear, I've Forgotten What Goes Here

Geria shuffled down the hallway to the meeting room, humming the charming little song that had been quietly tooting out of the large speakers in her room, or more accurately, the storage closet she had slept in after she forgot where the janitorial quarters were. Though to say she was actually humming the correct song would be a lie, as she had already forgotten the tune and was humming a combination of Space Habanera and The Itsy Bitsy Space Spider. Trailing behind her were her friends from the other day, their eyes red from what must be exhaustion. If she didn't know how happy they all were by their muttered threats and curses towards the captain, she would almost think they were planning a mutiny! Oh, she did have quite a silly imagination.

Unlike many of the janitorial staff, Geria wore an old robe, a nightgown, and two bunny slippers. She wasn't disobeying the rules, but she had both forgotten where she placed her uniform and forgotten she was supposed to wear a uniform so long ago, even Lt. Flo couldn't remember a time when Geria had actually worn the official B-Jac uniform.

Her fluffy bunny slippers almost slipped off of her feet, but when she bent down to fit them on, a space spear flew over her head! What a fascinating accident! The crowd trailing behind her cried out, and by the time she had shuffled herself in a circle to look behind her (sleeping on a pile of mops, sponges, and a lost passenger really does put a crick in your neck!) the rest of the group had beat and restrained a space squid alien.

"KGHKDUYHDKUILNDIOY!" it cried, waving the tentacles around it's mouth with glee.

"Oh, isn't that nice! Do you want a nice little sweet?" she said, rummaging around her robes for a toffee or caramel.

"SDFTGYHDUJILNDIUDKJDUBYDYHDVGLBKUIODYLND!"

"Well no, I don't know the way to Space Boston Market. Do you?"

"DHUGHBJKCBKYNFYJJDHGXHJCDJKGVHBCJKNBJDGVJHBFNKDJGVDHBNJXNJKBHJGVFDHBXNJKDBHGV!"

"What did Meryl Streep wear to the Oscars? You bring up a good point."

"I think she is saying she tried to kill you because of what your sushi company did to slaughter her people," rumbled Fonzie.

"Oh my! I remember those days! Back on the open plains of Omaha . . . wait, no. That was a film I watched once. Who were we talking about?"

"The squid that tried to kill you," said Fonzie.

"Oh, right. Why did you tie her up?"

"Because . . . you are an infinitely powerful space goddess and we did not want to anger you?" Fonzie rumbled, looking slightly nervous as he looked at his compatriots. "Did you not want us to do that?"

"All that matters is that it's done. You know, I don't remember being a space goddess, but if you say so!" Geria said, turning to shuffle off.

"What do you want us to do with her?"

"I suppose here is a fine spot for her. A nice view of space and all," she said, pointing towards the large window right next to the squid.

With a few muffled shouts as the squid alien attempted to fight back, the others managed to get her right next to the window.

"Isn't that nice? Oh, I did find a toffee, dear. Enjoy!" Geria said, tossing the toffee.

It flew through the air, but a vent turned on just as it was about to land in the squid's tentacles, striking the glass. Perhaps it was the old age of the ship. Perhaps the glass was simply too cheap to last. Or maybe it was because the toffee was actually a grenade and Geria needed to wear some sort of corrective eye wear. Whatever the reason, the toffee striking the glass caused a startling series of events.

The glass cracked in a fiery explosion, and every alien - save for Geria, the squid, and a rather large lump of what appeared to be gelatin, who had just arrived - backed away in horror.

The spiderwebs spread, and with a final crash, the glass let go, and the vast vacuum of space sucked the squid out so quickly it almost seemed as if it was being sucked out into space, of all places! The gelatin alien was the next to be sucked, but it was so large and fat that it simply blocked the hole, ending the suction as quickly as it had started. Every alien had been pulled forward and all of them were on their knees or a species equivalent, except for Geria who had conveniently done two somersaults forward and was on her feet in front of all of them.

A silence hung in the air as the assembled aliens analysed the amazing altercation.

"Hail!" cried a voice, shattering the silence, their voice ringing out.

The crowd began to slowly pick up the phrase, and before long they were chanting.

"Hail the Hoar! Hoar is Lord!" many sang out, reaching their hands as if to accept some of their powers unto themselves. "Hail the Almighty Goddess!"

Geria blinked and looked to Fonzie, the only one in the crowd not fervently worshipping her.

"Oh my. What is happening?"

"I - I'm not certain," he said.

"Hm. Do you mind taking this leather jacket? It keeps causing my bunny slippers to fall off," Geria said, pulling a large leather jacket out of her bunny slippers.

"No problem," he said, shrugging on the leather jacket.

She and Fonzie began to walk down the hallway once more, trailed by the adoring mob of aliens behind her, all of them worshipping her. Eventually they made it to the meeting place and she took a seat next to Fonzie as the throngs of her disciples spread out by her bunny slippers.

"Fonzie?" Geria asked.

"Yes?"

"What letter is today's episode brought to us by?"

"Ayyyy," Fonzie rumbled, flexing in his leather jacket.

With the window broken and the vacuum of space drawing out the unfortunate squid alien, the whole room went into emergency mode. Red lights filled the room, complete with warning sirens. The ship's sultry-sounding computer, Jasmine, called out a warning to all the ship.

"Penetration! We have penetration! Ohhhh, yes! My metallic body is opening in Janitorial. It's getting bigger. And bigger! There's such a rush. There's. Such. A. Rush. Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh baby. Oh!" The breathy sounds of the program, which unmistakably sounded like a young woman in the throws of passion, was doing little to help the situation. Fortunately, the gelatinous alien plugged the hole, and proceeded to freeze it's rear off.

Lt. Flo frowned at the spectacle, and taking the mike again, said, "Can it, Jasmine! Chuckie, get over there and show the crew what you can do. Turn your vac on to the max." Chuckie saluted with his bad arm, and then treaded his way over to the gelatinous alien, now shivering.

Chuckie gave a blow-by-blow detail of what he was doing.

"First, I am setting my vaccuum cleaner up to the max. This will perfectly match the suckage from space, so as to create a temporary acceptable pressure situation. Second, I will rescue our fellow crewman. Third, I will turn the vaccuum cleaner on. Finally, I will turn on a new prototype feature for cleaners that has just been developed. This is a code that all of us have access to now and can use as needed. It basically creates a pressurized area that keeps out all stenches, stains, microbes and germs. This will allow us to have this room in the correct amount of pressure needed to sustain life, until we can get the ship fixed. Preparing to remove our crewman. Brace yourselves, and... Now!

Chuckie pulled the gelatinous crewman who was literally freezing his ass off out of the broken window. And within microseconds, activated his maximum strength vaccuum cleaner. The effect worked. Chuckie's vaccuum was equally as strong as the pull into space was. The emergency lights and sirens in the room returned to normal. Chuckie then activated the new prototype pressurized field by code, and a green shimmering screen filled the walls of the room - and a little outward too.

Lt. Flo spoke over the hubbub of the cleaning crew for the first time ever impressed with Chuckie. "That pressurized field extends outward for a small amount of the ship. Basically within 400 yards in every direction from this room. That includes a few levels above us and below us. We don't want anything weakening the hull structure of the Burger! So until we can get this fixed, stay within the pressurized green zone. We will handle all cleaning duties that we can inside here, and take on the rest when the ship is repaired. One last thing - all new cleaners need to learn what to do from all experienced cleaners. Teach them the tricks of the trade, ladies and gentlemen. And remember! Always be efficient!"

Too bad Lt. Flo didn't realize she had just paired up murderous thugs now turned indentured servants, with the more experienced members of her B-Jacs crew!

---

In the cargo bay

The Burger cargo bay was quiet, as it usually was. Normally unmanned, it was no surprise that there was nobody present to notice one of the large, sleek metallic crates that the Sluggarian merchant had loaded, begin to shake.

A little movement here. A little more movement there. Whatever was inside the box that was labeled, "Danger! Do not jostle!", wasn't staying still.

And it wasn't too long before the metallic crate collapsed in on itself. And other crates that the Sluggarian had brought on, that had been thrown around by the Captain, the Neckenslasher, and the recent jolt in a lack of pressure from the Janitorial Main Room, also began to shake in a similar way.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Txha's night had been one of collecting things. She didn't consider herself much of a tinkering sort, but the more random objects she had on her person, the more likely she could find some use for one of them.

Having a vague knowledge of electrical engineering had helped when she'd opened the door to her bunk - really more of a sleeper-ship-style pod in the wall, as she'd mercifully gotten stuck with something small enough that nobody else could trod around inside it - and "fallen" for Prankbot's first trick. A deft application of brute force to the wiring had ensured that she'd removed the clump of wiring that the robot had snuck into the door mechanism after no more than two drum beats of that lame Old Earth song had played, and said wires were now resting in one of her big coat's many pockets. She'd considered trying to find a similar mechanism for the alarm that got her up, but time was limited and she didn't have any luck glancing around her mortuary-drawer bedroom for any signs of additional electronic components.

Prankbot's second trick had been thoroughly foiled when she made a brief detour to the bathroom to slap water into her face before the meeting - she'd touched the doorhandle with her metal fingers, and despite Q-1's momentary blind panic at the sensation of the voltage differential, Txha's bionics had only frozen up for a brief moment before she'd thrown the door open and retrieved the battery. Another item down.

Only suffering a mild hangover, she hadn't quite fallen asleep at the janitorial-staff meeting and was more than ready for action once the alarms blared and orders were given. Upon looking around the room at the motley collection of space-runaways, space-assholes, and space-murderers, though, she was interrupted in her slowly-accelerating train of thought by Q-1.

Okay, biped, are you getting all of this?

Think so. Ship's so shitty that someone can just cause a hull breach and you need a robot with a vacuum cleaner to fix it?

I was mostly referring to the fact that the captain picked up the entirety of an organized crime ring and everyone thinks they'll do just fine on the janitorial staff. Like, not even parts or members of a ring. The whole ring. A ring to rule them all, if you will.

If I'd mentioned that first, you would have referenced the hull breach.

I am fully aware of that, yes.

So, uhhh...

I'd grab something sharp and memorize the airlock locations, if I were you.

Step one was easy enough - as everyone was scurrying off to clean, Txha doubled back on her "room" to retrieve and stow the most roughly weapon-like object she could find in her solar panel repair kit. The fusion batteries were maybe half full and it was far from designed to be useful as a melee weapon, but she figured her soldering iron would do in a pinch.

She ran to the supply cabinet after slamming - and locking - her door, retrieving a mop and getting ready for bathroom duty.

[Barapam]

Meanwhile, on Ivan Sputnikov's ship...

Well, not actually "meanwhile", it's actually a bit back in the past, but not by much. Just a few hours. Although it sounds better with "meanwhile", but I don't want to lie to you.

Let's try again.

Ivan Sputnikov's ship, last night...

"You know, for a while there I thought you planned to kidnap me and force me to marry you."

"Funny, isn't it? The thought actually occurred to me, but that would be below even my standards."

The two cousins clinked their glasses of absinthe together and laughed, as they stood in the ship's war room, plotting to take over the galaxy.

"Wait, are you saying I'm ugly?" Laika inquired with a sudden look of scorn on her face. Cousins or not, she would not take an insult lightly. Ivan just shrugged and smiled.

"What I meant was that forcing you against your will would be a terrible thing, but now that you mention it, I could do better, yeah."

"You're one to talk! Besides, any trophy wife would envy my looks!"

"Does that mean you accept my proposal then?" Ivan grinned.

"No! We've been over this! I won't bear your puppies!"

The former prince, now shady bar owner, sighed. "I meant my other idea. The one we just discussed? The one we carefully concealed from the audience by jumping straight to this part of the conversation?"

"Oh. That one. Yeah, totally."

Just then, Laika's wristwatch alarm went off. It was time to get on the Burger. Ivan offered her lift, and she accepted it. Mere moments later, they were teleported down just outside the fast-food themed spaceship (although it should be noted that since Ivan's ship was parked just next to the A.S.S. Burger, it would be just as quick to walk down the stairs and over, but still used to the privileged lifestyle of the decadent upper-class, both Ivan and Laika were way too lazy for that). Ivan took Laika's hands.

"Look, if you change your mind regarding my first idea, the offer still stands."
"No way, man. I'll stick to our other plan, thank you very much."
"Very well then. Here. I want you to have this. You'll need it." The prince gave his cousin a small box. "Don't open it just yet. You'll know when the time is right."

Laika wasn't very impressed by the gift, but she took it anyway. More out of politeness than anything else.

"Thanks, I guess... Well, cheerio then."
"Tally-ho!"

They waved goodbye to each other, and Scotty, one of Ivan's Dobermen, pressed the button to beam him back up. Laika put the box in her pocket, and boarded her workplace, just in time to hear the captain's instructions. She told him exactly what she thought of them.

"5 o'clock?! Are you insane??! That's like, abuse, and a violation of my rights as a person! I won't have it! You're not the boss of me!" It didn't occur to her that he in fact was her boss, but that would admittedly not have changed her reaction very much. She headed straight for bed, and didn't think much about the new passengers. There were always new people on board, and Laika had learned to ignore them. They would probably get off during the next stop or so anyway.

Next morning...

Laika had never gotten up as early as 5. Once she had gotten up at 5.15, but that was because she had been up partying to 4.45, and only woke up because she still had her jewelry on, which she got up to take off, after which she slept for the rest of the day. Even when the space commies stormed her palace at sunrise, she waited until 5.30 to get up and flee, just as a matter of principle. Today was no different. So naturally, she was the last to arrive to the morning meeting (missing most of the action), dressed in harem pants, flip flops, a tank top which bared her midriff, a cap, and sunglasses, and a 'hair of the dog' in her hand. She had already had a small breakfast and showered, and was not in a very good mood, thanks to prankbot's electric hijinks. That all changed when Flo told them to instruct the new recruits. If there was anything Laika knew and loved, it was bossing serfs around. She grinned, and threw her feet up on the table.

"You there!" she shouted as she pointed at one of the thugs. "Get me a multi-vitamine fruit juice! And you! A foot massage! You three! Dim the lights, light some incense, and recite the epic poem of the history of the Sputnikov dynasty! And you, yes you, make me some coffee! Get on it, now! Chop-chop!"

[Pax Nerdvana]

Prankbot
Prankbot was happy that some of his pranks had suceeded, although he had only gotten one or two on video. After the hull breach occured, he flipped out his multitool, and said,"Hey Chuckie, is there anyway I can help patch things up? I can fit into small spaces where you big people can't go. I also do not require oxygen to survive."

[Nova Corina]

Squawks

Squawks pulled up his assignment for the day on his holopad. For the seventy-fourth time in a row, it was cleaning the ceilings. He knew that his flight was useful to the janitorial staff, but after doing something for seventy three years, he was starting to go insane.

"Hello," a gruff voice said behind Squawks. He turned around, and saw a worm-like alien. My gods, why did it have to be a worm? Squawks thought. Back on Zarris, worms were a delicacy. One could sense the awkwardness between Squawks and the worm. "So, what's your name?" Squawks asked. "My name is Aaron the Destroyer," the worm said. "Do you have any experience... cleaning?" Squawks asked. "I clean the galaxy of all whom oppose me," Aaron replied. "So that's a no," Squawks said.

Squawks led Aaron out of the meeting room, and into a hallway. Squawks leapt off the ground, and brushed a cobweb off of a doorway, his wings flapping. "So... why are you here?" "We are followers of a space goddess, who led us here," the worm-thing said. It sounded more insane than Ba'ash's ramblings. "A space goddess led you here?" Squawks asked. "Indeed. She takes the form of a janitor on your ship." This worm had definitely had one too many drinks back at Ice Mosley. Squawks continued cleaning. Trying to strike up a conversation, he asked, "So, who exactly have you destroyed?" "I knocked over a lamp once," Aaron said. "A lamp?" Squawks said. "Indeed. I am wanted across seven hundred solar systems." "For knocking over a lamp?" Squawks asked. "For killing everyone in the crew of a virtual murder star and then using it to destroy eighteen planets," Aaron replied. "You can't destroy much with this ship," Squawks replied. "You would be surprised," the worm said. "Collateral damage once deactivated the spice mines on New Slough for a year." "Huh," Squawks said. "So, do you plan on commandeering this ship?" "That would displease the goddess," Aaron replied. "Oh, right," Squawks replied.

The conversation was interrupted when Squawks noticed that the worm left a trail of slime wherever he went. "You're going to have to clean that up," Squawks said.

H'vari

H'vari was in charge of cleaning the hallways. It turns out that there was another Krabbian who had come onto the ship. His name was N'paido. "I RECOGNIZE YOUR NAME," N'paido said. "INDEED. I WAS ONCE SEMI-FAMOUS," H'vari said. "I WAS THE STARRING ROLE IN CRABBY DAYS, AS WELL AS MANY OTHER ILLUSTRIOUS ROLES, SUCH AS H'ENRY XVII IN THE B'ADORWAY PRODUCTION. ANYWAYS, HAVE YOU HEARD ANYTHING OF THE BAD MEN?" "I INITIALLY JOINED THIS CRIME SYNDICATE SO THAT I COULD DESTROY THE BAD MEN," N'paido said. "HOWEVER, ALL WE HAVE DONE IS PURCHASE SEVERAL MEALS FROM THEM." "OF SUSHI?" H'vari asked. "THEY HAVE A WIDE VARIETY OF VEGETARIAN AND VEGAN OPTIONS," N'paido replied.

[Talchyon]

Janitorial Main Room
Chuckie

After the green pressurized field went up, sealing off the breach through the window in the Janitorial Main Room, and the pressure was restored, and Jasmine the ship's A.I. had backed off and gone into her normal 'ignore-the-janitors-mode,' Chuckie watched as one by one, the individuals joined up into twos, duets, pairs, twinsies, duos, binary units, couples, doublets, dyads, twosomes, deuces, and twain. All but one.

Though he gave no audible sound, the data feedback on his screens gave some indication as to how Chuckie's programming was reacting to this new scenario.

Oh, no. Not him. Great.

Prankbot
Prankbot was happy that some of his pranks had suceeded, although he had only gotten one or two on video. After the hull breach occured, he flipped out his multitool, and said,"Hey Chuckie, is there anyway I can help patch things up? I can fit into small spaces where you big people can't go. I also do not require oxygen to survive."

This droid was suspected of having severe malfunctions, but had not yet been critically diagnosed with anything. Though it had several write-ups for his unbecoming janitorial behavior. Most of them involving hijinks of some kind or another. At Prankbot's question, Chuckie's systems flashed red as the cleanup knowledge droid responded.

Given that you have been written up three hundred and eighty-one and a half times in the last solar year for issues including and not limited to: dismantling restroom facilities, moving and misplacing important parts, and putting Stinkrian Anchovies in your fellow crews' heating units, you are the last droid who will ever be assigned to work on repairing the ship. You have not worked off any of the demerits assigned to you. Certain officers have questioned your overall efficiency, not to mention the high likelihood that you would continue to endanger the crew.

In other words, that is a big fat no. Thank you anyway for volunteering. That is worth 1/4 demerit no longer against you.

Gwen overheard the two robots bickering with each other, and while robots bickering with each other in general put Gwen in a humorous mood, today she was still groggy and annoyed to have to be up this early. She called out to Prankbot, "Hey, if you don't have any other group, come with me." She had been paired up with a Slothite, an alien species Gwen preferred to work with because it meant she didn't have to set too fast a pace. But if Prankbot came along with her, well, it would get Chuckie off his back, and maybe earn her some brownie points.

---

Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI
Burger's Diplomatic Relations Officer)

As morning dawned (figuratively speaking) and the normal morning shifts got up to begin their days, one average sized balding man with a large nose and a permanent frown on his face stretched in his tailored silk pajamas, smacked his lips, and yawned. It had been a good dream for the still-waking diplomatic officer. It involved hundreds of thousands bowing down to him, trying to gain his favor, and basically kissing up.

That dream never got old.

Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI came from a long line of diplomatic relations officers. Trained from birth to both understand many alien cultures, customs and rude gestures, as well as being disciplined in the mental fortitude it took to look down on all of them as beneath him, Prissypizzle had been assigned to the Burger by Starlift Corporate. Technically, the ship's Diplomatic Relations Officer was not in the line of command and had no real authority to insist upon his orders being fulfilled. But at the same time, captains who valued getting through alien customs without being robbed blind generally tended to keep their Diplomatic Relations Officers happy. And being from a long line of Prissypizzles who, like his ancestors, got obnoxiously arrogant anyway when his commands weren't followed, this put the Burger's Diplomatic Relations Officer, Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI, in the enviable position of having no real authority and yet getting to dictate anything he wished to his underlings. And let's face it, they were all his underlings on board the ship, in one way or another.

Carsten grinned as he savored the last fading moments of his dream, when he had been awarded celebrity status on every known world and 200 of the unknown ones, when opening his eyes, he got an unpleasant surprise.

A shimmering green screen made of electronic light was surrounding 90% of his room. It didn't seem to affect anything in one way or another. He could move about, so it wasn't a force field. The air was normal, so it wasn't a biochemical weapon. But what it was at the moment, was a major nuisance to the easily offended and pompous diplomat. He flipped on his Burger comm and said, "Jasmine, get me the captain."

The ship's lusty sounding A.I. responded, "Baby, he's still asleep. After what he and I were up to last night, it's no surprise."

Prissypizzle was not amused. "Only someone desperate would ever do anything with our captain, so that says more about you than it does about his state of competence this morning. I don't care if he's in his jammies. Get me Capt. Chary. Right now."

Her A.I.'s voice was curt and not pleased. "Why do I take orders from you anyhow, since you have no rank on this ship?"

Prissypizzle just retorted, "Because if you didn't, I will negotiate a trade away of every major personality-induced datachip you own with the next group of Interstellar Weasels we find. And we find them pretty often where we go."

Annoyed, but cowed, Jasmine flipped on the video screen to Capt. Chary, lying under his single bed with the covers on over his head and still trying to not get up.

Undeterred, the pompous Diplomatics Relations Officer belted out, "Capt. Chary. There is an emergency that you need to deal with right away."

Unintelligible moans escaped from under the bed, indicating that Chary was still asleep and not coherent.

"Capt. Chary, I repeat, you need to get your carcass out of bed and deal with the emergency that is taking place in my crew quarters this instant! As your Diplomatics Relations Officer, I insist that you take care of this insufferable problem right away!"

A groggy, weary sounding voice croaked out, "What is it now, Carsten?"

"There is a green light shining in 90% of my room that has no reason for being here. I demand that you look into this right away and get it fixed. Or I won't be so helpful the next time my services are needed."

Another groan came from the bed. Finally, the captain responded in as much coherence as he could muster, "Whatever. I'll get on it as soon as I get up."

Prissypizzle harumphed as his final word, and then flipped off the comm link and broke the connection to the captain. The green shimmering screen of electronic light was still in his room, and it was annoying as hell.

He decided that he liked being annoyed this morning because of how it might make him react to someone else in the afternoon. And so Carsten stayed in his room, within the area of the green screen. This morning, he could let the irritation seep into him. By the time this afternoon came around, well, whoever was going to run into him first, that person was to be pitied. Any random passerby would work.

[Pax Nerdvana]

Janitorial Main Room
Chuckie

After the green pressurized field went up, sealing off the breach through the window in the Janitorial Main Room, and the pressure was restored, and Jasmine the ship's A.I. had backed off and gone into her normal 'ignore-the-janitors-mode,' Chuckie watched as one by one, the individuals joined up into twos, duets, pairs, twinsies, duos, binary units, couples, doublets, dyads, twosomes, deuces, and twain. All but one.

Though he gave no audible sound, the data feedback on his screens gave some indication as to how Chuckie's programming was reacting to this new scenario.

Oh, no. Not him. Great.

Prankbot
Prankbot was happy that some of his pranks had suceeded, although he had only gotten one or two on video. After the hull breach occured, he flipped out his multitool, and said,"Hey Chuckie, is there anyway I can help patch things up? I can fit into small spaces where you big people can't go. I also do not require oxygen to survive."

This droid was suspected of having severe malfunctions, but had not yet been critically diagnosed with anything. Though it had several write-ups for his unbecoming janitorial behavior. Most of them involving hijinks of some kind or another. At Prankbot's question, Chuckie's systems flashed red as the cleanup knowledge droid responded.

Given that you have been written up three hundred and eighty-one and a half times in the last solar year for issues including and not limited to: dismantling restroom facilities, moving and misplacing important parts, and putting Stinkrian Anchovies in your fellow crews' heating units, you are the last droid who will ever be assigned to work on repairing the ship. You have not worked off any of the demerits assigned to you. Certain officers have questioned your overall efficiency, not to mention the high likelihood that you would continue to endanger the crew.

In other words, that is a big fat no. Thank you anyway for volunteering. That is worth 1/4 demerit no longer against you.

Gwen overheard the two robots bickering with each other, and while robots bickering with each other in general put Gwen in a humorous mood, today she was still groggy and annoyed to have to be up this early. She called out to Prankbot, "Hey, if you don't have any other group, come with me." She had been paired up with a Slothite, an alien species Gwen preferred to work with because it meant she didn't have to set too fast a pace. But if Prankbot came along with her, well, it would get Chuckie off his back, and maybe earn her some brownie points.

---

Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI
Burger's Diplomatic Relations Officer)

As morning dawned (figuratively speaking) and the normal morning shifts got up to begin their days, one average sized balding man with a large nose and a permanent frown on his face stretched in his tailored silk pajamas, smacked his lips, and yawned. It had been a good dream for the still-waking diplomatic officer. It involved hundreds of thousands bowing down to him, trying to gain his favor, and basically kissing up.

That dream never got old.

Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI came from a long line of diplomatic relations officers. Trained from birth to both understand many alien cultures, customs and rude gestures, as well as being disciplined in the mental fortitude it took to look down on all of them as beneath him, Prissypizzle had been assigned to the Burger by Starlift Corporate. Technically, the ship's Diplomatic Relations Officer was not in the line of command and had no real authority to insist upon his orders being fulfilled. But at the same time, captains who valued getting through alien customs without being robbed blind generally tended to keep their Diplomatic Relations Officers happy. And being from a long line of Prissypizzles who, like his ancestors, got obnoxiously arrogant anyway when his commands weren't followed, this put the Burger's Diplomatic Relations Officer, Sir Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI, in the enviable position of having no real authority and yet getting to dictate anything he wished to his underlings. And let's face it, they were all his underlings on board the ship, in one way or another.

Carsten grinned as he savored the last fading moments of his dream, when he had been awarded celebrity status on every known world and 200 of the unknown ones, when opening his eyes, he got an unpleasant surprise.

A shimmering green screen made of electronic light was surrounding 90% of his room. It didn't seem to affect anything in one way or another. He could move about, so it wasn't a force field. The air was normal, so it wasn't a biochemical weapon. But what it was at the moment, was a major nuisance to the easily offended and pompous diplomat. He flipped on his Burger comm and said, "Jasmine, get me the captain."

The ship's lusty sounding A.I. responded, "Baby, he's still asleep. After what he and I were up to last night, it's no surprise."

Prissypizzle was not amused. "Only someone desperate would ever do anything with our captain, so that says more about you than it does about his state of competence this morning. I don't care if he's in his jammies. Get me Capt. Chary. Right now."

Her A.I.'s voice was curt and not pleased. "Why do I take orders from you anyhow, since you have no rank on this ship?"

Prissypizzle just retorted, "Because if you didn't, I will negotiate a trade away of every major personality-induced datachip you own with the next group of Interstellar Weasels we find. And we find them pretty often where we go."

Annoyed, but cowed, Jasmine flipped on the video screen to Capt. Chary, lying under his single bed with the covers on over his head and still trying to not get up.

Undeterred, the pompous Diplomatics Relations Officer belted out, "Capt. Chary. There is an emergency that you need to deal with right away."

Unintelligible moans escaped from under the bed, indicating that Chary was still asleep and not coherent.

"Capt. Chary, I repeat, you need to get your carcass out of bed and deal with the emergency that is taking place in my crew quarters this instant! As your Diplomatics Relations Officer, I insist that you take care of this insufferable problem right away!"

A groggy, weary sounding voice croaked out, "What is it now, Carsten?"

"There is a green light shining in 90% of my room that has no reason for being here. I demand that you look into this right away and get it fixed. Or I won't be so helpful the next time my services are needed."

Another groan came from the bed. Finally, the captain responded in as much coherence as he could muster, "Whatever. I'll get on it as soon as I get up."

Prissypizzle harumphed as his final word, and then flipped off the comm link and broke the connection to the captain. The green shimmering screen of electronic light was still in his room, and it was annoying as hell.

He decided that he liked being annoyed this morning because of how it might make him react to someone else in the afternoon. And so Carsten stayed in his room, within the area of the green screen. This morning, he could let the irritation seep into him. By the time this afternoon came around, well, whoever was going to run into him first, that person was to be pitied. Any random passerby would work.

Prankbot
Prankbot looked at Chuckie, and said,"If you don't want me to repair things, than what do you want me to do? And just so you know, I was not the one who hid the spare vacsuits. I think someone messed around with them after a shore leave a few months ago."

[Talchyon]

Janitorial Main Room
Chuckie

Prankbot
Prankbot looked at Chuckie, and said,"If you don't want me to repair things, than what do you want me to do? And just so you know, I was not the one who hid the spare vacsuits. I think someone messed around with them after a shore leave a few months ago."

To some, Chuckie may have seemed to have waited forever in answering Prankbot. As if an eternity and a day had passed waiting for the cleaning knowledge droid to answer his fellow robot. But, in all actuality, it was only a few moments. Anyone who thought it had been almost forever, must have been mistaken. So, with only a few passing seconds, Chuckie responded (and no, he wasn't covered in a thick new layer of dust and cobwebs, either).

"No, Prankbot. Your services are best used elsewhere than in repairing our ship. For example - I think I saw a puddle on the floor of the men's restroom that you should go clean. And remember - if you ever need a suggestion as to what cleanser works most efficiently, I am your droid."

With that, Chuckie rolled off on his treads, heading to check out the troops.

---

Gwen

Gwen, like every other cleaner and janitor on board the Burger, had been assigned to work with one of the newbies. These weren't your typical recruits. Most times, new janitors were apathetic, lazy, broke, and unwilling to have to clean. You could find them anywhere, usually lounging around in the halls trying to look like they were contributing, while applying the least amount of energy possible.

But these new guys? They were nowhere to be seen.

She didn't know when she had lost the new guy. It was just, all of a sudden, Gwen had turned around and the guy had gone. Which was okay on the one hand, since the new recruit had a death glare and a keen eye for every possible detail. Plus, the questions he had asked her! These were questions like, "Hypothetically, if there was to be a mutiny and the rebels took over, do you think the captain would just hand over the controls to the ship?" Or, another of those not-so-typical-new-recruit questions: "So, where on this ship do you guys keep the blunt objects?"

Gwen went down the hall and found another cleaner - a Slothite. It was a guy she knew. Took forever to do his job, but what did you expect with Slothites? However, there was no new recruit with him. Telling herself that there was nothing to worry about, Gwen walked to the next corridor. The cleaner she recognized was also alone. And so was the next. And the next. The new recruits had all vanished.

"Great," she thought. "More work for us to do."

But then, she had an idea. Reaching for her cleaner comm - the comm system that worked at a different frequency that only those with cleaning duties could pick up - Gwen said, "Hey, this is Gwen. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a human. I'm the one that calls dibs on dusting duty, so I don't have to scrub mildew. You might know me from that. Anyway, so, the new guy who was with me seems to have vanished. I've found others too who are missing their trainee. Anyone else missing a flunky? Did they all just take off or something? If they're all gone, do we need to find them? I don't want to have to clean all the toilets by myself. Gwen out."

Little did Gwen know that the new recruits were already taking action to do something very dangerous. For they were meeting, outside of the green energy field that was the ultimate cleaning screen that was also doubling as a force field to keep the ship together from the breach. And their leader, the alien in black leather called "Fonzie," was with them, giving detailed instructions as to how they were going to capture the Burger! And maybe kill everyone on board. They hadn't decided just yet. The mutinous recruits were treacherously smiling. Glaring. Concocting schemes of power, riches, going anywhere they wanted, and committing crimes across the galaxy!

One even had the brilliant idea of keeping some of the cleaning crew alive, so that someone could take care of all the bodies, bloodshed and gore they'd leave in their wake. And maybe, throw away annoying wrappers from any snacks they might eat in the meantime. Janitors did have a use, after all.

---

Burger Cargo Bay

Debris littered the floor, where the Sluggarian's metallic crate that had been shaking now lay ruined. Those that had been shaking had also opened, were now in ruins too. So were all the rest.

And a silent alarm had now tripped on the cargo bay. An alarm that was useless and unseen, due to components of the wiring on the Burger that had been eaten away. Amidst other pieces of the ship that had been devoured. It was as if the ship was now self-devouring. And the destruction was growing.

Whatever was in those containers, was now eating away at the Burger. And they didn't even have any fries to go with it.

[Nova Corina]

Squawks

Squawks received Gwen's message. It felt like he had been cleaning for weeks, and that he was in some kind of trance. The message snapped him out of it. He looked around. Aaron the Destroyer was gone. But his slimy trail certainly wasn't.

He quickly followed the trail, which led him throughout the hallways. Aaron obviously didn't exactly know his way around the ship. Finally, however, after several minutes, Squawks rounded a corner, and found... that crab man mopping up Aaron's trail. "Did you see a worm man pass?" Squawks asked. "NO," H'vari replied. "I WAS SPEAKING TO MY FRIEND, N'PAIDO!" "Where is your friend?" Squawks asked. H'vari stopped cleaning, and looked around. "I DO NOT KNOW... WHERE IS HE?" H'vari asked. "I don't know," Squawks replied, "but we should probably find them. Flo'll kill us if we don't." "I AGREE!" H'vari said.

Squawks took out the cleaner comm. "Yeah, I'm with... What's your name?" "H'VARI!" "Yeah, him. Anyways, we can't find our flunkies, either. However, mine had a slimy trail, so if we can find that, we might be able to follow it to wherever they are."

[Barapam]

The new recruits had seemed eager to obey Laika's commands, and had quickly run off to fetch her the things she wanted, but it took them long, too long in fact, to return, and Laika was starting to lose her patience. One of the tings that jarred her was that she had forgotten to tell one of them to act as her footstool, and that meant that right now she had to sit in this admittedly quite comfortable chair with her feet on the floor, like some common... commoner. She was not amused, at all. Where were they? It was so typical! Either the space bandits turned janitors were stupid and had got lost, or were stupid and had got distracted, or were smart and had ditched her to do something funnier instead, or they were actually planning a mutiny, like in Disney's ancient adventure story Treasure Planet, or they had done their best to fulfill her wishes but gotten seriously hurt in the process, maybe due to the hull breach or any of the many other health and safety violations onboard...

Laika chose to believe the latter, but then she heard Gwen, and Squaw with Crabs, on the intercom, and- No wait, that wasn't their names. The bala of Jakrussial Krow looked up at the ceiling and searched her memory, but she quickly gave up and shrugged. They weren't that important people after all.

"Yeah, Laika here. My guys vanished as well, and I don't think it's because of the ultra-strong detergent that eradicates all... dirty... I mean slimey... Urgh, I had a joke for this! But anyway, we still have that stuff locked away in a safe, right? Since it's illegal in seven solar systems and potentially might severly damage the ship... Gee, I hope these guys haven't found it! I'll start looking for them right away!"

With that, the previously privileged princess left the conference room (something all the other, less lazy, janitors already had done), determined to do some hard, honest work for once, but she didn't look where she put her feet, and it happened to be right in the tracks of the giant killer slug "Aron the Vulgar", one of the bandits who she had thought she could treat like a servant, and naturally, she slipped and fell.

"Aaargh! Sweet Crystal Dragon Godess!" Laika grabbed her intercom, and whispered to the other janitors. "Laika here, over. I think I've found a way to follow them. A slimey trace. Maybe you've seen it too? I think I've sprained my ankle though, so if you could come and help me, that would be great. Please. I promise I won't act like a bitch for... four hours, if you do that. I'm at-"

A strong hand suddenly wrapped around hers, and crushed the transmitter, and her hand, but just as she wanted to scream, a second hand covered her mouth. The bandit was behind her, and she couldn't see him.

"Hush now, young lady", he whispered, with a breath that stunk like Garxzaarian sulfur diesel and rotten eggs. "You'll only make it worse for yourself if you fight back."

[Auphelia]

But then, she had an idea. Reaching for her cleaner comm - the comm system that worked at a different frequency that only those with cleaning duties could pick up - Gwen said, "Hey, this is Gwen. For those of you who don't know me, I'm a human. I'm the one that calls dibs on dusting duty, so I don't have to scrub mildew. You might know me from that. Anyway, so, the new guy who was with me seems to have vanished. I've found others too who are missing their trainee. Anyone else missing a flunky? Did they all just take off or something? If they're all gone, do we need to find them? I don't want to have to clean all the toilets by myself. Gwen out."

Little did Gwen know that the new recruits were already taking action to do something very dangerous. For they were meeting, outside of the green energy field that was the ultimate cleaning screen that was also doubling as a force field to keep the ship together from the breach. And their leader, the alien in black leather called "Fonzie," was with them, giving detailed instructions as to how they were going to capture the Burger! And maybe kill everyone on board. They hadn't decided just yet. The mutinous recruits were treacherously smiling. Glaring. Concocting schemes of power, riches, going anywhere they wanted, and committing crimes across the galaxy!

One even had the brilliant idea of keeping some of the cleaning crew alive, so that someone could take care of all the bodies, bloodshed and gore they'd leave in their wake. And maybe, throw away annoying wrappers from any snacks they might eat in the meantime. Janitors did have a use, after all.

Geria Trick
Oh Dear, I've Forgotten What Goes Here

Geria sat on Fonzie's shoulder, humming along to the tunes that were being sent through the thingamabob and into the wassitsname and into her ears. That Fonzie was a sweet alien, and he had shown her how her comm system could be connected to the whatsit to give her music. The youths of today really did have a knack for technology, that's for sure.

"The best thing about being a woman
Is the prerogative to have a little fun and . . ."

She sat watching as he spoke to the other cleaners. Apparently she had been assigned all of the newcomers, and she couldn't quite remember who she was actually supposed to be mentoring, so it was so lucky she had run into Fonzie and the gang back on that planet or she wouldn't remember . . . something. Oh dear, she forgot again.

Every so often the crowd would begin to chant, probably affirmations of success. Geria remembered a time on Yzitri when she had been a yoga guru, and she had always said "Profits are key!". Or wait . . . no, that was the cattle rancher . . . or was it . . . oh bother . . . what was she supposed to be doing again? She popped out one of the thingummies from her ear to ask Fonzie.

". . . their blood shall stain our mops as we head down the central hallway! Now, we just have to trick one of the janitors into telling us where the dangerous chemicals are so the Kvorgians can get to working on the bombs. Now, does anyone have any questions?" Fonzie rumbled, his voice filled with what sounded like anger but had the inflection of glee.

"Oh, yes, I do. What were we supposed to be doing again? I think Lt. Flo had something about a mop . . . or was that what you just said? You know, that reminds me of the time I -" Geria said, before being cut off by Fonzie.

"Um . . . did you hear all of that?"

"About how you wanted to clean up the blood spill in the main hallway with mops? I think it's wonderful how you're taking initiative already!"

The aliens all glanced at each other, mumbling nervously and chuckling to themselves.

"Uh, yeah. Right. So, we'll probably need some chemicals, like the kind you make a bomb with. Like a cleaning bomb, but also a bomb bomb," Fonzie rumbled.

"Of course! Just follow me!" Geria said, falling forward off of Fonzie's shoulder to the crowd below, stepping on various body parts of aliens in the crowd, incapacitating and killing several of them accidentally, before gracefully landing on the floor. "Now I think it's a left . . . and then a right . . . "

And so on they forged with Geria in the lead, slowly shuffling towards various closets. The group passed several other janitorial staff members, but none of the good ones, just the kind with big red buttons on their uniforms saying "NPC". She wasn't sure what any of that meant, but the aliens behind her must have liked them because they gave them a lot of hugs and pats on the back with clubs, knives, and vacuum cleaners.

After three hours of wandering the ship, the group ended up exactly where they had started.

"It's this one right here!" she said, indicating the closet Fonzie had been standing in front of before.

The various aliens muttered among themselves and several tried to lunge for her, but the Burger's floors, having not been mopped in a while (thank goodness these new helpers would soon be able to help!), were to slippery and they fell on their faces, knocking themselves unconscious, and the rest of the crowd settled down after that, looking at Geria warily.

"Oh, is the door locked? Here you go!" she said, handing Fonzie the key.

"No need," he rumbled, ramming the door with his fist, sending it careening into the interior. He stomped inside, denting the floors, and came back out with a large jug, scratching his head.

"Ayyyyyyyy . . . " he rumbled, confused.

"It's actually pronounced 'apple juice'," Geria said, smiling sweetly.

"I thought you said this is where the chemicals would be . . . " Fonzie rumbled.

"Well, we've had some budget cutbacks, but this will be good enough to clean up some blood, or make a wonderful scented bath bomb! Besides, after all of that walking we could use a nice rest and some delicious apple juice!"

Fonzie stood there, strangely still and growing redder and redder. Geria would have told him he was changing colours, but then she saw Laika towards the back of the crowd, being hugged by one of the slimy aliens!

"Laika! Yoo hoo!" she said, tottering over to the dog woman. "Are you enjoying your time with the new recruits? I see you've made a new friend!"

[Woods Is Back]

D.A.F.T.

D.A.F.T. awakes directly after the hull breach, and hops off his charging port to come and inspect the repairs

"Well, I see that the repairs are going well." He jumps up, and starts cleaning space dust off the wall. "It appears that you have missed this whole room with your mop, or is that your hair? Its hard to tell these days." He chuckles to himself and continues cleaning the walls and windows. When he arrives on cleaning the floors, he arives at a pile of crap from the "Foul Frenchfry Of A Hamster". As he cleans it up, his mouth gets dirtier and dirtier, along with his language, causing passing passengers to scowl in disgust. When he is finally done cleaning, the captain walks past him, and he launches all the dirt at the captains back, and remarks, "Captain, it appears that your date with the restroom must be revisited, but I know how that went for you last time..."

D.A.F.T. returns to his charging port in the command center, and has 'dreams' of a lovely speedboat

[Pax Nerdvana]

Prankbot
After hearing Chuckie's order, Prankbot began buzzing down to the men's room to mop up the puddle. First though, he needed to stop by the barracks. He floated in through the door, and grabbed a pillow off a bunk. He than hovered over to a supply closet and grabbed a spray bottle labeled "Bathroom Instaclean". He flew down the corridor to the men's room, and used the pillow to mop up the puddle of unidentified green liquid. It turned the pillow case neon green. Than he sprayed the area with the cleaner, and scrubbed it with the pillow. The pillow case was now the color of toxic waste. He floated back to the bunkroom and dropped the pillow on the floor. He wondered what it's owner would think of it's new color.

[Nova Corina]

Squawks and H'vari

"Ummm... where's Laika?" Squawks asked. Silence. "Alright then," Squawks said. "Before any more of us go dead, we should probably meet up somewhere. We're in Hallway 7, near Room 14B. Where are the rest of you?"

Suddenly, Squawks saw a toothbrush hop by. "Hey! Are you a..." The toothbrush continued to return to the command center. "What is that?" Squawks asked H'Vari. "I BELIEVE THAT IS A TOOTHBRUSH," H'vari stated. "Oh, really? I didn't know that," Squawks sarcastically spat. "WELL I AM GLAD YOU HAVE BEEN EDUCATED," H'vari said. "I BELIEVE THAT EVERY SENTIENT BEING HAS A RIGHT TO-" "Shut up with the platitudes. We may have an emergency on our hands," Squawks said. "THE WORST EMERGENCY IS THE LACK OF PROPER EDUCATION IN-" "I said, shut up!" Squawks said, in a louder tone. H'vari finally listened.

[Harbertia]

Sesley Sala Sslo
Her eyes showed a sadness but her face a slight grin as it always does at rest. She began to speak out loud to her potential friend while she remained fully concentrated on cleaning a wall in the Green Zone; "I'm gonna miss Mr. Squiggles." She said with a slight chuckle glancing behind her towards her new co-worker for confirmation of humor received but the stranger was not present. Sesley stopped lowering herself to the floor- she didn't know the individuals name- the referencing of the space squid was suppose to be an icebreaker. She knew, well enough that Flo would not tolerate the newbie going missing and insecurities came upon her regarding this situation. She spoke hushly; "Newbie?" Worried she began to crawl along the floor, "Nuuubee?" she whispered. Getting close to an intercom (which someone turned down in volume- totally against regulations - right?) she heard some words coming from it, softly. The experience was- shocking- back at the meeting. It was one thing to try to undermine such with humor but another to have no one to follow up the reference and thus for both parties to alleviate stress. Sesley turned up the volume and got some unexpected referencing of a toothbrush. She, worried a bit that Flo would hear but more about what could be going on she pressed the button to speak, "Hello," she began meekly before building in words, "This is, Sslo Hallway 9, what'sss going on?"

[Talchyon]

En route to the Bridge
Capt. Gruff Chary

The day was not starting well for the normally avaricious captain. First, he had been wakened early from his sleep by the Diplomatics Officer, Carsten Edward Prissypizzle VI. Who knew what the pompous ass was complaining about this time? Something about a green field? Chary had more important matters to deal with. Getting the rest of his rest was one of them. And it's not like Chary could discipline Prissypizzle. He was a Diplomatics Officer. Starlift Corporation hired them, and he had no say in it. Diplomatics officers lay outside the chain of command, and so had no technical authority on board the ship. But they sure made life a living hell if they didn't get treated the way they preferred. That meant that Chary couldn't demote a Diplomatics Officer, suspend his pay, assign demerits (since Diplomatics Officers answered to Corporate and not to the measly captain of the ship they were on), nor even do any other number of things. Leaving a Diplomatics Officer stranded on some asteroid gave a temporary relief, but eventually the news would get out and Chary would get in trouble with Corporate down the line. Capt. Gruff Chary couldn't even assign Prissypizzle to eat at a different table than he did. Though Chary was the captain, Prissypizzle basically had an untouchable diplomatic immunity.

And it was as annoying as hell.

But that was just the start of Chary's annoyances for the day. As soon as he got his uniform on and headed out towards breakfast, he encountered a passenger he had been avoiding. She was a Tude-dinista, and they were the worst. She had been clogging up the Burger's request boards with her complaints. She had sent several personal demands to meet with the captain. She had wanted special treatment. She had wanted better travel conditions. She had wanted all numbers of things, and it never let up. The woman was heavy-set, and like all Tude-dinistas, had the attitude to go with it. And she was waiting to speak to him.

"Captain! It's about FREAKING time. I have been waiting forEVER and a DAY for you to get back to MY requests. What kind of TRASH operation is this, when a paying passenger can't get the basic DECENCY she needs and that EVERYONE ELSE gets? Oh, are you expecting to get some BREAKFAST? You think it's OK to ignore yo passengers' basic REQUESTS while you go shoveling food in yo FACE?

Gritting his teeth, Capt. Chary said as he kept walking (hoping the conversation would end), "Hello, Mrs. Sass."

The woman didn't let up. No surprise. She kept harassing the captain down to his traditional breakfast restaurant on the Burger, all while he kept eating, and on his way back to the bridge. As far as Chary could tell, Tude-dinistas didn't need to breathe much. They just kept pouring out attitude with slight breaths. In the hallway, it was going like this:

"I was talking to my sister Shaneequa, and SHE was sayin' to me, 'Girlfriend, YOU should never hop on board a Starlift ship. They are the WORST kind of ships. Uh uh. You don't want to GO there, girlfriend. You won't get where you want to GO, not in TIME anyways, and you got to PUT UP with the lowest forms of BLUE TRASH aliens you would NEVER 'sociate with out on the town. GIRLFRIEND, you listen to me, you hear?"

And it was then, that the day got even worse.

D.A.F.T.

D.A.F.T. awakes directly after the hull breach, and hops off his charging port to come and inspect the repairs

"Well, I see that the repairs are going well." He jumps up, and starts cleaning space dust off the wall. "It appears that you have missed this whole room with your mop, or is that your hair? Its hard to tell these days." He chuckles to himself and continues cleaning the walls and windows. When he arrives on cleaning the floors, he arives at a pile of crap from the "Foul Frenchfry Of A Hamster". As he cleans it up, his mouth gets dirtier and dirtier, along with his language, causing passing passengers to scowl in disgust. When he is finally done cleaning, the captain walks past him, and he launches all the dirt at the captains back, and remarks, "Captain, it appears that your date with the restroom must be revisited, but I know how that went for you last time..."

D.A.F.T. returns to his charging port in the command center, and has 'dreams' of a lovely speedboat

One of the janitors, the sentient toothbrush named D.A.F.T., had just emptied his brushes of all his filth on Chary's jacket. He could only shake his head in fury. Trying to ignore the Tude-dinista, the captain turned around in fury as he pointed at the toothbrush. "You! No pay for a month. Any more like that, and you'll be on Diarrhean toilet duties for a year!"

Now he had to go back to his room. He was not going to go to the bridge looking like this. He huffed as he walked off, with the Tude-dinista behind him yammering about how little respect she got since she had been days late from being dropped off where she wanted to go. He got to his cabin, and went in, but was unable to close the door. The Tude-dinista came in, and not only yammered about missing her drop-off, but also insulted him. Par for the course when dealing with a Tude-dinista, but nothing Chary wanted to do.

After he was dressed, she followed him to the bridge, and he had had enough. Controlling his anger as best as he could, the captain said, "Mrs. Sass. I understand we didn't drop you off at the time you wanted. If you want, we can drop you off at the nearest planet, moon or space station with a full refund, and you can get another ride." Oh, please, let her say yes. Chary was about ready to impale himself with several sharp knives in his eyes to end his suffering.

But the Tude-dinista apparently was fed up, too, with being on the Burger. "I will GLADLY take my money back, you GREEDY excuse for a ship's captain! Drop me off at the nearest place. I've HAD it with you! Get me OFF this ship!"

No sooner than she had granted permission, Chary was quick on the take. "Jasmine, what's the nearest place we can drop Mrs. Sass off so she can get another ride?"

Jasmine, the sultry computer A.I. of the Burger, spoke back, "That would be the Junk Mail Spam Station half a light-click away."

Chary grinned. Not only could he get rid of an unwanted passenger, even though he'd be missing out on the money she brought. But he'd have the chance to annoy a Junk Mail Spam Station in the process. He hated how much junk spam he got in his box daily. Well well. Let Mrs. Sass bother them. Maybe it would slow down the amount of useless commercial advertisements and pointless political advertisements for candidates he didn't care about on planets he never went to.

"Jasmine, set a course!"

So they did. It was a hop, skip, and a jump (not to mention the fact that it was also a bounce, prance and spring) to get to the Junk Mail Spam Station #452 in order to drop off their insufferable passenger Mrs. Sass the Tude-dinista. She hopped in a shuttle programmed to dock at the space station, while drones brought her luggage from her room as well as the other things she had brought with her, that had been kept in Cargo Bay #2.

Where the ship had begun to dismantle itself.

---

Gwen

Gwen found Squawks, H'Vari and others who were waiting for them. Sesley (whom she called "Salsa") was talking on the intercom a few hallways down, so they found her as they all gathered together.

Gwen spoke up, "Ok guys. Listen, we're in a heap of trouble if these new guys get lost. If they won't work, we're going to have to do their jobs. And I know, that happens a lot among us," she said, looking at the apathetic, lazy and psychotically insane janitorial custodians who were with her in the hall. "But I for one won't take it. We got to find them. And if we don't, I don't know what would happen. But it won't be good. They might make us room together with Flatulators, Diarrheans, and Stenchites. No one wants that. I suggest we split up in twos and look around to find the recruits we were assigned. Then we can search quicker and get back to business before Flo or Chuckie see us.

"Last thing. And this is pretty important. See that green, glowing field there? The one we were told to NOT GO OUT OF? Yeah. That rule is still on. I'm sure that Chuckie would know if we crossed it. Then we'd really be in trouble. So we're going to stay on this side of the green light field, and not get in trouble? Got it? Got it? Good. Then let's go and find those noobs before they get us into more trouble than we already are."

---

Cargo Bay #2

It wasn't quite the same thing as the ship being eaten from the inside. Not quite. For whatever the invisible, unnoticed content of the Sluggarian's cargo crates were, and no matter the fact that they were leaving a trail of devastation in their midst, there was something unusual.

And that was, if one was to look really closely (not that anyone was there, or that anyone could check out live video access due to the corrosion of the wires, or that anyone really cared who had access to said video access control panels), they would notice something not right. When the content began to interact with the parts of the Cargo Bay, first there was a quick flash of brittleness, then powder. Metals quickly rusted, then turned to powder. And then the powder blew away and it was gone. All in the blink of an eye.

But, as one might expect, content from the Sluggarian's opened cargo crates had hopped on board with the Tude-dinista and were going to the Junk Mail Spam Station #452. Which reached all parts of the galaxy, every planet, every home.

And wouldn't you know? That content conveniently found a way onto the junk mail spam that also was sent to every home, every planet, every moon, in all parts of the galaxy.

It was going to be utter chaos.

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

Txha was well aware that she did not have a "newbie" to partner with, and was fully exploiting this fact to half-sprint half-sneak around the Burger figuring out what was going on. In fact, she reckoned that she could probably reason her way out of being caught without someone else - after all, she was already working in a team of two, though neither she nor Q-1 would have liked to admit that except in an emergency. As the Olboronian expression went, though, better safe than sorry (was that an Olboronian thing? Txha had first heard it from one of the big bear aliens, but she wasn't sure), so she ducked into a convenient nearby bathroom and swished her mop around on the floor whenever someone approached to keep people thinking she was actually busy.

She was the sort to have her comm system active but never to speak in it; she'd have preferred to rig the thing to remove whatever microphone and tracking equipment was on it, but it was probably for the best not to destroy company property. Someone else's property, of course, was fair game, and that had included Prankbot's electrical components. Despite her frustration at the mandatory interconnectedness of the operation (sure, coordination was important back home on the solar panels, but here?), she'd grown increasingly fond of paying very, very close attention to what people were saying. The criminals on the ship couldn't have been up to any good, and she was intent on figuring out both an escape plan and two or three combat plans.

Until someone decided to interrupt.

Woah. Txha, I think something's wrong. Getting some really weird sensor signals here.

Yeah, I'm getting that "you know something's coming" headache. Think it's a stress thing?

...ehhh...

Q-1?

...looks like your body's suffering a bit of a niacin deficiency.

Txha tried to tune out the worm-droid with a quick rebuttal and started mentally jotting down what she'd heard on the radio. As far as she could tell, the situation was on course to deteriorate faster than a starshade exposed to a black hole's relativistic jet.

Sure, I'll keep that in mind next time I have the option to go for an extra-vitamins smoothie at that shop over on the ship's aft end.

Q-1 was already mentally speaking over her as she was finishing that thought.

Yes, and among the other "something's wrong" data: one of our teammates - madam dog - straight-up went missing, we have an old lady leading the Crime Ring to Rule Them All on a tour like the Burger's her old family farm, Gwen's telling us to actually go interact with criminals, and a couple of people are shouting... eh... somewhere over there, I think.

...you know, I'm starting to think the soldering iron's sort of pointless here.

You're in the janitorial staff on a ship that services aliens that probably don't breathe oxygen. Think you can come up with something they taught you in chem?

Txha took off down the halls again, this time at a much more reasonably balanced pace so as not to attract real suspicion. Ammonia - the tool of many a stressed housemaid, janitor facing down an impossible stain, and wannabe anarchist - was prime on her list. Supply cabinets would be the first things to check - but, failing that, she was fairly confident that at least a good chunk of the aliens aboard the Burger had spare tanks of the stuff sitting around for breathing out of or something. The next items on the list would include some kind of chlorine solution, a good acid... something like that. Sure, she'd only taken a few weeks of intro chemistry while being rushed through trade school, but every once in a while knowing what a cation was paid off just a little.

She could see herself explaining the problem to Flo or one of the less likable janitors - "yes, yes, there was a really big accident in Men's Room 428C, a Trugligate decided to molt on the floor and you need something really strong to scrub that off... now let me borrow a combination of chemicals which everyone who's ever been around knows can be used to kill people" - but opted for the sneakier approach, visually scanning down every nook and cranny in unoccupied rooms to scrounge together whatever was necessary to make an impromptu chemical grenade. Hey, at least the airlocks were an option too if things got really bad.

[Zjaum]

Uttra

Uttra was already lost. She had a general idea of where she was supposed to be, but that was only from her knowledge of A.S.S. class transport vessels. Well, it was primarily their steel beam superstructure, rather than the floors, but she could hug the poles for a surprising amount of distance. When she finally arrived at what she considered her starting destination, she felt pleased with herself. Not every janitor arbitrarily assigned themselves a place with a window. Granted, the window was considerably tiny, and in fact the room she found herself pressed up against all four walls and the ceiling, but it was an otherwise nice room. She just hoped that the cracked glass and liquids at her feet reading "Ammonia" on them meant that she didn't enter a... thing. She didn't quite know what a pantry, or a toilet, was, so neither option came to mind.

As she began to mop up the mess she had presumably made with her previously-found paint roller, she noticed an annoying woman and an annoyed man walk down a hallway, causing all kinds of commotion. Interesting. This must be the mating ritual for humans. She will keep this in note. Shortly after, she saw a space station jump into view. It looked like Junk Mail Spam Station #452, if she wasn't mistaken. As if by rote, she began reciting part of the guide she read as a child: "JMSS #452, identification number 46323571 in the Universal Post Office Database, is designated by the Galactic Structural Index a rating of 5.3 for stability. It imports approximately 435,672,129 requests for spam submission each day, and fulfills approximately 435,893,248 of them. To date, it has sent out 5,324,702,503,485 pieces of... 486 pieces of... 487... 488... 489..."

She had now forgotten about her task. The only indicator of sentience, aside from her counting upwards, was her rolling back and forth of her paint apparatus, which was of that very moment painting a single spot of the wall whatever color ammonia had.

[Talchyon]

Hallway
Gwen

It was as if her speech had had no effect. It seemed like nobody had heard her. At the very least, nobody had reacted. At the very least, a crowd wasn't forming around her words, waiting for a leader to rise up from the ranks and be the voice of the common people.

Either that, or the comms were down (again). Wouldn't be the first time on the A.S.S. Burger.

With that in mind, and seeing how nothing had really come of her words, Gwen started pointing at people near her. "You, and you. Yes, you guys. Come on with me. We need to tell people to look for the new guys, and get them to do their jobs. I don't want a second shift, and I would think you don't either!"

Who had she pointed to? Why, whoever was the first to respond, I suppose.

---

The Sluggarian

Cornered in his room with all of his bed's blankets on top of him, the Sluggarian merchant was saying what sounded like possibly a prayer, or at least, the incoherent sounds of someone realizing certain death was on its way.

"Homina homina homina," he said.

It was a little comfort that someone had an idea of setting up what looked like a green forcefield. With very little force to it, he thought, as he passed through from the one side to the other. But the merchant wasn't going to take any chances. For against his better wishes, this caveman of a ship's captain had jostled his precious cargo. And the Neckenslasher beast and the fight with the Beastarian didn't help, either. The Sluggarian could have told them - but they were in such a rush, and there was nothing he could do.

It didn't make matters any better when he saw where they had docked. A spam junk mail station. Notorious for sending out all of the internet spam in the world. Businesses could hire them to advertise. His own companies had before as well. But for what he was carrying in his cargo, made a bad situation worse. If by worse, you meant, galaxy-threatening, which is still pretty bad if you think about it and worse than what the Sluggarian was expecting, even if it magnified it by a 100 million times of worse.

Cowering, the Sluggarian hoped that the green force-field (if it was a force field, that is), would somehow keep the ship flying for at least another hour.

[Barapam]

[...] Fonzie stood there, strangely still and growing redder and redder. Geria would have told him he was changing colours, but then she saw Laika towards the back of the crowd, being hugged by one of the slimy aliens!

"Laika! Yoo hoo!" she said, tottering over to the dog woman. "Are you enjoying your time with the new recruits? I see you've made a new friend!"

"Is she with you, goddess?" the slimy space slug asked Geria, but before she replied, Laika bit the hand of his which covered her mouth, and the sudden pain caused the alien to scream and let go off Laika, who then quickly slid out of his slippery grip. "Yes, I'm with her!" she shouted at the killer slug, unknowingly quoting one of the slogans Geria had used when she campaigned for president of... some unimportant planet, long time ago, which Geria herself also had forgot about. In another ironic twist, which none of them saw (or maybe that made it even more ironic?), Laika had been saved by the woman who had led the communist uprising on her homeworld. Geria had forgot about it, and Laika had been too busy living a lazy jetset life to bother to learn the faces of her enemies, so she didn't realized either, and was thankful for the old lady's interference, even if it hadn't been on purpose on her part.

"You wrecked my hand, I wrecked yours. I suppose that makes us even", she told the slug, "... but I still want compensation for destroying my intercom-device!" Laika had turned around and was now pointing an accusating finger at Fonzie, despite the fact that the intercom was A.S.S. Burger's property, not her own. "And also you should still fix my broken hand! And I want an apology! And you need to mean it!"

[Multiversal Venn-Copard]

While it hadn't been hard to substitute standard janitorial bleach for a high-yield solution from a discarded bottle labeled "HALLUCINOGENS" (the stuff worked on quite a few species, didn't it?), hydrochloric acid and a few other good reagents still eluded the solar-engineer-turned-paranoid-anarchist and her worm bionic. On the one hand, of course, it wasn't as if perfectly good chemicals would be expected to be found lying around on a spacecraft, but on the other, the Burger, in all its falling-apart glory, couldn't be called a real spacecraft by any stretch of the imagination. It was all the more convenient for Txha and Q-1 that those two factors cancelled out sometimes, though it was also worth bearing in mind that nothing else on the spacefaring equivalent of a leaky liferaft was to be expected or to fall in line with the normal behaviors of sane people putting their chemicals in sane places.

Also of note in the "unexpected" department was the three-eyed alien gently stroking a paint roller inside a nearby room and staining one of the walls while counting to herself as if in a stupor.

Txha crept up to the room, took one look inside, and then - with no complaints from Q-1, astonishingly - executed her plan of action:

"Woah, woah, that's not what you use a paint roller on! We're janitors here, not interior decorators!"

The young woman entered the room behind the stranger - well, fellow janitor, at least, but they weren't exactly on a first-name basis. She carefully maneuvered around the glass pieces on the floor, taking note of their chemical labels and mentally marking the more intact-looking bottles for later use. Q-1 stayed eerily silent in her head, though Uttra, if particularly attentive, might have been able to identify the contraction sound of a KoRei-Tech M280 servomotor as she bent over to pick up and stow away a fully intact bottle of ammonia solution.

"Just, ah, go get a proper sponge. Hell, they have way too many mops on this ship; get a fresh one and scrub down whatever doesn't match the color of the wall.

...You can see color, right? Red at seven-hundred nanometers, blue at four-hundred? Okay, I don't actually know."

Txha cleared her throat and glanced away sheepishly. "Damn. That was a bad introduction. I'm Txha. I work here too. And, ah, I think I'm going to ask you to swap out for something for cleaning walls while I get the floor around here." She whipped out her own mop to follow up her statement.

I'd recommend a broom for the pieces rather than a mop, see.

Oh. There you are. Was wondering if you were going to help me out on my intro there.

It's pretty funny how you think I actually know anything about social etiquette for all the ten-trillion or however many alien species out there.

Can't blame you. I don't even really know how to do it for humans.

[Zjaum]

Uttra cocked her head slightly to one side. "Between Earth-Years 1985 and 1987, there were approximately 67 drowning deaths, many of which were attributed to mopping buckets," she casually mentioned in a lackadaisical tone.

She winked her third eye. "My name is Uttra. It is nice to meet you, T- T- I cannot pronounce Txha," she said with perfect pronunciation. She bowed her still-cocked head just a little. "Does the fact that I used a paint roller mean I am fired again? I don't want to be fired."

the Werai was mildly impressed that, even when she hugged all three walls of the now-open janitorial room, Txha still found a way to move in and collect a bottle of ammonia. She looked out the window again. "It is a very pretty sight outside. It is similarly a shame that the Junk Mail Spam Station #452 has to block our view."

She squeezed out of the closet and headed in a direction which she thought would most likely contain mops. She turned around before she left. "By the way, KoRei-Tech recalled three million M280 servomotors for potentially causing heart attacks." She actually wasn't paying attention to Txha's movement, not that she could identify a M280 servomotor in the first place. "I don't know why I told you that; I suddenly felt that I should share that with you."


She soon came across an odd-looking creature [Laika] on her travels and felt the urge to scratch her belly. She did so, and in the meantime asked for directions to where they kept the mops. "My best friend and I are working on cleaning up a spill in a janitorial closet."

[Pax Nerdvana]

Prankbot
Prankbot noticed they were docking at one of the Junk Spam Stations. This would be a good chance to spam the spammers. He was tired of them trying to overload his datatbase with their spam. While cleaning a bulkhead, he managed to establish a remote connection to the station. He immediately began uploading version after version of Never Gonna Give You Up to it's servers, along with some ancient vids from someone called Kazookid and old toy commercials along these lines. He hoped thsi combination would severely annoy them.

[Main Nation Ministry]

Wade Watts

Among all of this chaos, where would our character Wade Watts be? Well, one thing was certain. Gwen was right about some of the new janitors. Wade was busy attempting to look professional by mopping the floors in the hallways, but he ended up looking like that one extra in Quantum of Solace who was cleaning the air above the floor. While Gwen probably wanted Wade to not wear his Sun Command jacket while he's working, he can't really resist it. By now, Wade should have gotten himself fired, but he needed to, at least, a decent job. While doing his work, he started to daydream about one of his favorite episodes of Sun Command with himself as the main star.

It was the sand planet of Thearo, as Captain Wade Watts and his crew arrive on the surface, armed with their laser guns to confront the evil lord of metal and trash, Screamstar. On a cliffside, Screamstar showed himself to Wade Watts, declaring his grand entrance. "We meet again, Captain Watts!" he yelled to him, as he laughed in an evil manner, which starts to go over the top into hammy acting. "Jesus...I- Uh! Ahem! Screamstar! You're in violation of attempting to eradicate parts of the universe! Surrender now, or face action!" Wade stated to Screamstar. "How can I surrender when I have the remote control for my thermonuclear death ray in my hands?" Screamstar said, holding up the remote control in his hands, as he continued to laugh as Wade was already aiming his gun to shoot at the remote control. "Hey, Screamstar! Look over there! It's Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror Volume 1 book that he postponed!" Wade pointed to literally nothing, where Screamstar took the bait.

Firing at Screamstar's hand, Wade shot at the remote, causing it to be destroyed, as Screamstar clutched his hand in pain, the remote started to spark. "I will get my revenge, Captain Watts! Just you wait!" Screamstar yelled, retreating. "Well, it looks like the day has been saved! Thanks to me, of course." Wade said, winking at the camera. It was then he-

-proceeded to accidentally fall on the floor of the Burger, having been leaning on his mop, as he was daydreaming. Straightening his glasses, he immediately attempted to look professional again, even though he spilled his own bucket.