Sofia Melton's Pyxis; Originally an SCI Retrofit (Contains Spoiler Content)

[pale hornet]

A girl with a vision for the future and a headful of nonsense Sofia always dreamed of escaping the world she saw herself in full of impersonal communication and an over reliance on factory made junk just to get through the day.
One day her dreams were realized when an over enthusiastic loan shark showed a shipping container that was barely made airtight with a pair of thrusters welded on and a Polaris navigation console stuffed inside without even the minimum of life support.
Filled with some of the worst conspiracy theories publicly available and an mostly healthy sense of morality, she bought the deathtrap ready to build a home for herself with her own two hands and a the tools she managed to gather in her dangerously short career as a shipbreaker.

Her first addition was small. Modest. Sensible even.
A wall was extended out, and a platform for a second ship battery welded to the side like some deadly porch. Some overhead bins were installed for interior storage, and the bare minimum of life support was added, a pump hooked up to an oxygen tank lashed down to the outside of the ship with cargo netting.
A small space was even laid of for the eventual addition of an airlock.

From there progress stalled. Her refusal to spend any of her money on 'mass manufacture crap that has never known the touch of a human hand' meant she was relying on her hand tools and whatever batteries she could find out in boneyard for her simple electric soldering iron. Her luck with batteries for her welder was non-existent.
Her luck did turn but not how she had initially hoped.
Her first run in with a pirate shattered any delusions of swashbuckling glory as she had to run with her EVA suit nearly destroyed leaving behind her tools in her panicked haste.
Ready to simple think of the encounter as a learning experience she moved on, hopping from wreck to wreck, salvaging what she could to pay off her ship's mortgage while looking for new tools, until, with her ship full and now filled with parts for future expansions, she realized, with horror, she had also left her license behind.

Her luck turned again this time for the better shortly after she had managed to pay off her mortgage, despite a ship barely big enough to be called a ship.
A so called treasure boat. A ship full of, empty and damaged cargo pods used for interplanetary shipping.
With her mortgage paid and enough money in the bank to take a vacation, even with expensive docking fees, Sofia turned her attention to the thing she most desperately wanted in that moment. If not a charger for her Halverson welder's battery, then at least a welder battery with enough charge to repair a hole in her ships hull that she may have, accidentally, put there on purpose.

And a few days later, that hope was answered in the best possible way. a beaten but likely functional weber laser torch, sadly missing a battery, and a working Halverson power tools battery charger.
and so she returned to K-leg station and gathered her things and prepared to make the ship hers removing every component that was in the way, leaving the transponder drifting precariously in the micro gravity environment, as she began cutting away all of the original Tetsudo hull peices ready to replace them with scavenged Mobil ship system parts.

[pale hornet]

While Sofia wished she could have said she realized just a moment too late, that wasn't true. It wasn't until she had returned to her ship after selling the last of the Testudo wall kits that she realized she hadn't bothered to count how many MSS wall kits she had. Not enough to put simply replace what she had taken out. So she pivoted. "This is a good thing" she told herself. "I was always going to expand, this just means im doign it a tad bit early. I got this far without a pressurized ship hull. I know how to be safe, I just have to keep doing what I have been for a tiny bit longer.

((I had placed down the uninstall order for the Tetsudo walls before I stopped to make sure I had enough MSS walls to replace them. I caught it in time, but I decided it would be funnier if Sofia hadn't.))

[runic gull]

Looking forward to the next installment!

[pale hornet]

Sofia paused for a moment, confident in her next step. It was a slow process, from relying on reference notes for every step of the process, to needing those same notes to give her confidence in her memory. Now, she realised, she hadn't dhecked those notes in a while. In fact, she wasn't sure where they were. Had she left them on some derelict? No matter this was a moment of revelation, and while Sofia wouldn't bother to take the test, she was certain she could earn a rating in electrical engineering.
There was an old earth phrase, though not one Sofia had ever heard. "She knows enough to be dangerous."
While she was no master, she was now Skilled in Electrical Engineering.

[pale hornet]

Sofia returned to K-Leg station not sure what she had just survived. Her memory was fuzzy and she couldn't quite put the events she had just experienced in order. She had docked with the remains of a freighter, that much she was certain of.
Her morale had been bolstered by the small victory of finding a charger for the Weber LASER she had found a few days ago. She still needed a battery, but this was a huge win. if she could get her laser torch working she wouldn't need to rely on scavenging GOTT power batteries to run her soldering iron, there were repairs she had been putting off for the simple fact that she had limited power on her soldering iron, then there was the salvage she had sold for less than she could have with a few simple repairs, and that was saying nothing about the salvage she had simply left behind because was too broken to sell, and while she knew how to make the required repairs, she just couldn't afford to use up the precious charge of her batteries like that.

Sofia shook her head. Her mind was wandering whatever had happened she hadn't fully recovered.
The freighter.
When she first saw it she thought it was a big payday, and she was already happy and distracted from the weber charger.
Right the other salvager.
Sofia had felt a spike of adrenaline and was about to reach for her Cutlass before she recognized the other woman.
Sofia didn't know her, but she had seen the other woman around. Sofia hadn't worked as a shipbreaker long but she had seen the other woman around in the first couple months. Remembered the old hands celebrating when she had managed to secure a mortgage for her first ship.
The two women stared at each other for a long moment before they silently agreed to just ignore each other. Neither wanted trouble, pirates killed enough lone operators that killing each other was just a plain waste.
Sofia swept though the ship, gathering whatever easy salvage she could find before she turned her attention to the cargo containers.
Just the memory filled her with a sense of dread. Sofia wondered if that was the sense of doom so often associated with heart attacks.
Whatever the case, that's where Sofia's memories went weird.
She had to have run back to her ship, but she could remember slowly removing the containers form their mounting brackets and carrying them over to her ship ready to bolt them onto her ship for a solid payday. Just four of the better ones too, leaving some for her fellow salvager rather than take them all for herself. then a feeling of choking and everything faded to black.
Had she... died? No that couldn't be possible.

[pale hornet]

Sofia swept though the ship, gathering whatever easy salvage she could find before she turned her attention to the cargo containers.
That same sense of dread washed over her but she carried on.
For a moment everything was fine then that choking feeling returned.
Then she was at her O2 pump using it to empty the bottle from her EVA suit, the spare already emptied and refilled and now the bottle from her suit was filling with CO2 from nowhere, now matter how fast she made the pump suck it all out.
It was her welder, she could remember thinking, it was the culprit. It was filling her Oxygen tanks with deadly Carbon Dioxide.
She held a trial for it, but it was acquitted and...
...and her ship docking with the next derelict had snapped her out of whatever fugue she must have been in.
Sofia swapped the O2 bottle in her suit, the one that had been spewing out endless CO2, with the spare.
she checked her CO2 filter, it was still clean and in good condition with no sign of corrosion on the battery or the terminals in her suit.
She wasn't sure what the issue had been but fussing with her suit had fixed it.
Turning her attention to the ship she had just docked with, Sofia let out a yelp of both victory and relief.
The ship was an Argute.
This ship would have the Mobile ship System walls she wanted to finish building out her ship with.
Sofia shook herself off and busied distracting herself by removing wall sections from the derelict and welding them onto her ship.
She was just about to go back for some conduit when she noticed just how low the charge on her battery had gotten.
Sofia didn't want another hypercapnia induced nightmare, assuming that was what she had just experienced, so she quickly un-docked from the derelict and did a hard burn for OKLG ready to get back to a pressurized space with a mostly optimal mixture of gasses.

[pale hornet]

Sofia heaved a sigh of relief. She had done it. She had proven what she already knew, what she could do with a cold lifeless shipping container someone had bolted a couple thrusters and an antenna on before cramming it full of the equipment needed to make it function, lacking room for even the most basic of life support. Now? Now it wasn't quite the home she envisioned, but it was beginning to take shape and had already become a functional vessel for a solo operator like herself.
Already she could feel the hum of something built by human hands starting to take root in her small ship. She imagined if it could speak, her Pyxis would be urging her to head back out into the boneyard. She was still reliant on scavenged batteries for any soldering work she needed done, if she truly wished to breath life into her ship it would need all of the equipment necessary for her to maintain it.

[pale hornet]

Was that buckle always there? or that zipper for that matter.
This was the second time Sofia had repaired this exact EVA suit, how was she just now noticing these things?
She made one final check and with an odd sense of trepidation she couldn't quite place, she put on the EVA suit.
As she stood up she felt uneasy, not uncomfortable just... off.
It took a her a moment to understand what she was feeling.
The EVA suit felt so light, more like a heavy jacket than the cumbersome personal life-support she had been spending all her time in lately.
Moving her arms she realized the had slightly better range of motion too.
Was this always how she was supposed to wear her EVA suit?
and that zipper she found? A small pocket for a replaceable magnet that had crumbled into dust. A perfect place to attach screws or, she realized, the little clips she had never found a use for, the ones that she now realized would be perfect for holding wire.
When she made it back to port, Sofia was going to ask an old shipbreaker that liked to hang out in Mescaform for a some tips and tricks for EVA operations. She had never considered that might be a skill you could develop.

She needed to stop by the Self Care Kiosk anyway, the hauler she had collided with had not just broken her EVA suit, it had knocked her out cold. She could barely think through the pain. Maybe thats why she noticed all these thigns for the first time?

[pale hornet]

Sofia had carefully laid in her course, and had even double checked it twice before she laid out her bedroll.
This was the first time she was sleeping on her ship.
It was exciting, not just as a mark of progress, but with the fear and uncertainty about what might go wrong.
She needed the rest though, she was in too much pain to keep pushing herself. Maybe she should have just paid the extra docking fees.

[pale hornet]

Sofia didn't even flinch as the proximity alarm went off. Instead she skillfully returned her tools to their places, the screws she pulled off the rack already stowed away where they couldn't drift around distracting her or worse, injuring her if she was forced to make desperate maneuvers.
She did it quickly, but not so quickly as to cause her to fumble.
She finally understood an old turn of phrase she had heard from the old shipbreaker "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."
Sofia was not moving slowly, but she was moving smoothly, and she could already tell the difference it makes.

[pale hornet]

Sofia could feel her work pace accelerating as her confidence grew along side her skill. A part of her recognized how foolish she had been buying her ship while still do unprepared, but another recognized that she had only grown so quickly due to the extra challenge.
Fiat Acompli. It was an accomplished fact that she had come this far even with the misfortune she had faced. She was beginning to recognize that while not every misfortune could be blamed on her naivety, her ability to survive them had been more dumb luck than brilliant skill.
Hopefully that was changing.

[pale hornet]

A bunk. Sofia had a chance to sleep on a 'proper' bed once during a sleepover when she was little.
It was just the once and she never got to play with the girl again after than, Sofia hadn't realized why until years later.
Sofia knew that weren't that uncommon but it was something that had always been beyond her reach. Still was.
Still despite the fact that it needed some repairs (what mass manufacture crap didn't?) Sofia could fix it up and put it into storage until her ship had grown large enough to accommodate a bedroom. Strange to think such luxury was actually inevitable, so long as she kept safe.

[exotic tulip]

you have a hydra with only 1 n2 can

[pale hornet]

I do, it uses less electricity than a kang and is more compact
My ship is also paid off so there is no reason not to keep one on hand when I'm ready to expand my RCS package. Once my Cargo bay is finsihed and I start expanding my ship I will have space and need for s second can

[pale hornet]

Sofia Melton's Pyxis; Originally an SCI Retrofit

[pale hornet]

Sofia was glad to be back in the boneyard. The pain hadn't entirely faded, but the her left leg had finally been declared as healed. She must have read that business administration textbook cover to cover twice, but at least she had something to show for practically forced vacation that she took (and the thousands of dollars spent on docking fees while she recovered)

Sofia Decided she was tired of waiting for more Orange MSS tile to show up. She didn't actually need to finish her cargo bay before she could move on. She wanted her bedroom now, and she had been holding onto those pretty pink Testudo floor sections since she had found her bunk. she didn't care how childish the room would look. This was HER home damnit. It was about time for it to start looking like one.

[pale hornet]

Sofia decided that it was a start. Her bunk was skill back at the station, she probably needed a third thruster, the bathroom needed a light... and a toilet. She had a vent back a OKLG she could use to connect the two sections, but she would need a second one going to her room. She wished she had grabbed one of the spacer stools on that luxury passenger liner she had been on a while back too.
Hopefully it wouldn't take too long to find a door to seal the section. Sofia shook her head and sighed. She had just finished repairs on her ship too; now there was so much more to do.
As she stepped back out to return to work a stray thought his Sofia. How common were lights out in the boneyard exactly? She hadn't seen many, but was that just because she wasn't looking?

[pale hornet]

Sofia was one of the rare few people who didn't hate the NASS officers, they were better than patrol drones if nothing else, but she also didn't like them any. (who did, their families? sure.) Sofia DID get the door she wanted, and an auto-vent to go with it (as well as a couple mundane ones)
Sofia was nearly done on the ship when she got a ping about NASS scanning her ship. 'whatever' right? her license was in order. she picked up one off a derelict that expire a whole day and a half after the last one she had purchased right before she took that time off for her leg to heal. No problem right? Wrong. turns out waiting in mind numbing pain for your leg to mend while reading a book on 'business administration' has a tendency to make one lose track of the passage of time. Yay.
Turns out her License had expired two day ago.
It sucked but whatever, NASS would board the ship she would play dumb, get fined and carry on with her day right?
Wrong actually.
The officer just boarded her ship and pulled out their tablet to watch the latest breakout match while sipping some coffee and... was that a donut?
Sofia wasn't sure what came over her. she locked the officer on her ship, and stole the transponder. (managed it without breaking the thing, proud moment that)

With the transponder offline Sofia was expecting pounding on the door leading into her airlock but... nothing. So Sofia started to just take things, carrying each piece of equipment past the NASS officer who looked at her like they didn't have a care in the world. So Sofia just kept taking... until she got bored.
After that Sofia got angry, moved a damned ship battery out of the patrol boat's power room, so he could shut off the power, close and lock the door behind her and took the battery back to her own ship. The NASShole just looked at her like this was a regular day at the office.
When Sofia realized she was about to hit the officer to try and make them do something, she just ordered them off her ship instead.
When they didn't immediately come back asking where their navigation console, or heck the damned terminal she carried off the ship went, Sofia just undocked, slightly unsettled, but at least forty thousand richer, if she sold the hydra intakes for a low price.
Maybe there was some mental health fund for the NASS officers. some charity reminding them that didn't have to be such jerks to everyone.
Whatever that was... it just wasn't right.

[pale hornet]

Sofia nearly shut the crate before even looking at the things inside. The problem with hunting for something specific is that sometimes you become too focused on eliminating dead ends as quickly as possible. However that didn't matter, a GOTT POWER battery charger meant that Sofia finally had a complete set of tools, completely unreliant on finding new batteries and hoping they had enough charge to be useful. She still wanted batteries for her weber lasers, but with the GOTT charger this was no longer a pressing concern.
Even through the deck plating of the derelict she was on, and through the docking rings connecting the two ships, she could practically feel the Pyxis purr in anticipation. Only one charger meant she would still need to ration her battery power. Nurse the charger keeping dead batteries cycling though it when she could, but she finally had almost everything her Pyxis needed.
The next step was a reactor room, which meant she needed more space.

[pale hornet]

With a battery room built, The Pyxis was finally able to stretch its cargo area some. Sofia still needed to expand it to its full size, and to build a proper bridge and atmospherics room, but even small progress can make a big difference

[pale hornet]

Sofia stepped back from the reactor controls, for a moment unsure if she had succeeded, then finally her Pyxis woke for the first time. What had begun as a simple shipping container converted into something barely resembling a ship had finally been reborn as a proper ship.
So long as she kept Pyxis fed and in good condition Pyxis would keep carrying Sofia around the sun each providing for the other. Two lives intertwined. Sofia had to grow stronger for Pyxis, to protect her. Sofia's mind turned to her treadmill and to the pirates she had killed. She needed to train, to be ready. she could still feel the lingering pains from her collision with that absent minded hauler. For now, all Sofia could do was bide her time, recover, and prepare herself for what was to come. Pyxis purred encouragingly, the steady hum of her engines reminding Sofia just how far they had already come together.

[pale hornet]

The second pirate wasn't dead, yet, but he was unconscious and Pyxis didn't want the blood all over her deck plating. However fighting two entropic fools had crystallized the lessons she had learned scrolling the endless feeds of the social apps, the hours spent trawling the forums devoted to old earth martial arts. The way of the blade was an endless path, Sofia realized, and while it wasn't her path it wasn't a pirate's path either. A pirate only needed to be intimidating to coerce their ill begotten gains from the poor ship breakers they preyed on, but no so intimidating as to threaten the corporation's profits. Sofia needed to be strong enough to protect Pyxis. That was where the difference lay.
Sofia's body may still be weak, but she only needed to be strong enough to kill pirate trash. Her strength would grow, and she would maintain this small skill with the blade she had built.
As Sofia returned left the failed ambush behind she felt Pyxis purr encouragingly. Together they were strong... and growing stronger.

[runic gull]

Niten Ichiryu.

[oblique kindle]

I enjoyed reading this earlier. I came back to say that I've since started overhauling my ship, having been inspired by you.

[pale hornet]

Sofia, on her way to the medical kiosk to refresh her Nano treatment (again), absentmindedly walked into the OGISO office.
It seemed like so long ago she had checked the ship listings searching for anything to take her away from the empty life she seemed doomed to live out on K-Leg.
Possessed by a whim she logged into the ship rater and pulled up her dear Pyxis.
A-6-E-Lunamax. That was about right. The stupid ship rater didn't recognize her wellness room as such because she didn't have any sort of door separating it from her battery room, but she knew, and Pyxis new what she was.
Sofia would never bee so crass as to Sell Pyxis but they could have a laugh together over how badly they undervalued her girl.
Tabbing over to the broker screen she waited for the terminal to populate a sales price.
$2,191,921.25... what would she even do with that extra quarter.
Looking at the ship listings Sofia found herself pleased to see a Mark 2 Tombolo selling for less than two million.
Even they were only judging by her super structure, that could at least appreciate Pyxis. Not that she could expect them to know the value of the connection between a girl and her ship.

[pale hornet]

Sofia smiled. While Halberds didn't have the most of the orange way flooring Pyxis wanted for her cargo bay, they were supposed to come with a couple hydra intakes. Though both were damaged, this one had two. Pyxis really knew how to pick her wrecks. Added to the nearly full Deuterium tank she had found on the Mesa she had just left? Pyxis was really keeping herself in good cashflow.

[pale hornet]

Sofia still needed to install some of the racks she had in safe storage back at the station, but Pyxis finally had half of her cargo bay completed.
It was finally time for Sofia to address a problem she had been ignoring.
Where was Pyxis' bridge room going to go? It had to be close to Sofia' quarters, but there wasn't space to cut out of the wellness room. after some contemplation Sofia sighed. the battery room would need to move, and maybe shift. Thankfully, Pyxis' soothing drones reminder her that they didn't need many batteries, just enough to start up her reactor after any maintenance was done. Atmospherics would need to move too, but that was a lesser problem

[pale hornet]

Sofia's eyes glided past it once, twice, almost thrice. The FLEX strength trainer.
It needed repairs, but Sofia knew anything that didn't was suspect, unreliable, something she had restored was something she could rely on.
Sofia knew building her strength up, making up for the toll the years of too little gravity, and too little time to focus on her health, had exacted on her body. Now, having kindled life into Pyxis, she was sheltered, protected, for possibly the first time in her life. She had time to turn her focus not out into the world but into her self.
She had grown along side Pyxis, but soon it would be time for them to thrive.

[pale hornet]

Sofia stepped back. Admiring her work. While she still had some conduit to install for full redundancy, and Pyxis' transponder would need moved when they returned to station. She was done. Her Pyxis was complete. The furniture in the wellness room still needed rearranging, but she was done. Taking a moment to herself, Sofia striped out of her clothes and lay down on the cargo room deck luxuriating in the intimate contact with Pyxis. She couldn't stay like this for long, but the two of them had come so far and they deserved this moment.

[pale hornet]

Not for the first time, as Sofia settled into the rhythm of running on the treadmill, she found herself wondering just when she would begin to see the improvements from her training. she had been at this a while and, of anything she was beginning to feel like she was having more trouble keeping her breath, not less. Feeling a coughing fit coming on Sofia hopped off the treadmill and tried to calm her breathing, Instead of deep soothing breaths Sofia felt some sort of bubble inflate in the back of her throat sending her into a panic.

Sofia began half consciously stumbling to the sink as she was overcome by painful hacking coughs. Finally, one last disgusting cough cleared what was bothering her. Feeling lightheaded and drained she stared down uncomprehendingly at a mass in the bottom of the sink. Bloody mucus, she realized, some of the blood was fresh, little bright red stringers, but much of it was old and congealed. Blood she had never coughed up after than crash. Her neck was still sore from that.

Rinsing the mucus down the drain, Sofia finally recognized the light headed feeling she was still feeling. The last time she had felt this was was on her first day in the shipbreaking yards. Some of the older apprentices had been horsing around when one fell over busting a hole in a nearly full tank of pure oxygen. This was no where near as heady as that day had been, but Sofia wondered if this was how pro Breakout players felt like all the time.
Sofia noted that she still had some time till she reached her next derelict. Looking over to the treadmill, Sofia took a deep breath, and got back to it.

[pale hornet]

How long had Sofia been running? She could check but that might break her stride. Taking intentional even breaths Sofia considered if she should keep going. Muscle fatigue was beginning to set in but she felt like she could keep this up for a while yet. Her runs had been like this lately, no longer constrained by lungs capacity to deliver oxygen to her body, but rather by simple muscular endurance.

It was time to switch up. Maybe after some strength training she could push further? Pyxis needed Sofia at her best. Maybe while she cooled off she could dig into the hacking text book she had found? That sounded good.

[pale hornet]

Sofia was beginning to doubt this 'hacking' text book would ever teach her how to hack into things.
Most of it was focused on how to identify common vulnerabilities in security system and common fixes for those. She appreciated that it was helping her secure Pyxis against theoretical hackers, but how could they use this to get into things, rather than keep thing out?
It was a useful skill none the less so she occasionally used various smart crates she found on the derelicts to practice identifying weaknesses, and patching them out.
This crate showed signs of a common vulnerability where typing in a password 'leaked' some data regarding the correct password.
On a whim Sofia typed in something random expecting it to come back as invalid.
When it worked Sofia stared at the lock in stunned silence for a moment.
She then stared in embarrassed realization. Sofia could use all of these vulnerabilities she was learning about to hack into things.
Idly, Sofia wondered at all of the useful skills she might have that she wasn't aware of. Damn.

[pale hornet]

A scrap of paper reads:
202831.10 from fixer
39109.46 from scrap
14799.75 +O2 tanks
945000 from 35 spc. cargopods
total 1202040.31

[pale hornet]

A Scrap of Paper Reads
69 PDAs 8154.34
files? 744855.10
Mod Carts? 365734.30
Total 1,110,589.40
(The total is circled and the word 'DAMN!' is scribbled next to it)

[pale hornet]

Sofia Melton's Pyxis; Originally an SCI Retrofit (Contains Spoiler Content)

[pale hornet]

Sofia stared at the Trencher meal on the ground. It was their Flagship mystery meat meal 'surprise sauce'.
She didn't trust it. Food was food after all, there was no real way for them to scrimp other than by using sub-par ingredients. unlike flawed parts designed to break down, you couldn't really do that with food.
This wasn't the first time Sofia had pondered the question. She had looked into things. Using the term Mystery Meat was a time honored tradition, of people forced to eat slop, to refer to food they were sure was undesirable. Like insect protein, back when even the poor could be picky about their food.
Sofia wasn't even sure there was an undesirable protein anymore. Other than people, but people had considered so called 'long-pork' as an option for the mystery meat. The conclusion? Human meat was too expensive to produce to put into a trenchers meal.

Possessed by her curiosity, Sofia began picking out the little meat chunks, studying them, wondering.
Eventually she realized she was just wasting time that would better be spent flying to the next derelict.
Chucking the remains of the uneaten meal, and the mystery meat chunks, into the void of space, Sofia returned to her ship to finish loading her cargo.

[pale hornet]

Another weber Laser. Sofia wasn't even going to bother grabbing and repairing it she alreayd had two, but no battery. This one was at least in decent condition. Was it even worth selling? Maybe?
Sofia lifted her foot to bein walking away, then stopped. It might have a battery.
She should check. It wouldn't have a battery, but she should check.

[pale hornet]

||The Meat mystery became too much for Sofia to ignore. At Pyxis' urging she went onto the station and did a quick search for any avalible information.||

||Sofia sighed. Public record searches were getting her no where, unless you counted consiracy theories. She would have to dig deeper if she wanted a satisfying answer||

[pale hornet]

||How, Sofia questioned, are you even supposed to react to that?
like... at all. A literal wall of meat. That's literal the stuff of horror, yet other than a slight startle-jump of her heart she barely reacted. What was it even going to do? Try to eat her?
Sofia idly pondered, as she watched it pulse, if it would be more horrifying if she could smell it.
She should cut some for study. or something.
Could she maybe sell this? Worth a shot. She would have to see the fixer about it.||

||An eye. With a Goat pupil. What is this, some giant space goat?
Sofia growled in frustration with herself.
A giant wall of meat and it too a goat eye to connect it to the mystery meat, that perpetual protein stuff.
Strangely. This was a bit of a let down.
Pyxis hummed in sympathy. Apparently, Sofia mused, they lived in world where genetical modified space goat could survive off of space dust.
Was this meat Goat cancer?||

||Sofia was beginning to convincer herself. This was a Goat with Magical Super Space Cancer.||

[pale hornet]

||Two Magical Goat Cancer ships, nearly seven bag of meat, seven horns, seven eyes, and nine hooves.
OH! and Three drink pouches filled with the meat's weird diseased looking blood.
Sofia shook her head as Pyxis' reactor stuttered in dumbfounded amusement.
Sofia began plotting a course back to K-Leg, wondering just how she had ended up in this bizarre situation.
She always knew massmanufactured goods were souless, but this... this took the proverbial cake.||

||Sofia smiled widely as she carefully backed away from her black-market contact.
Turns out she was some sort of crazy Goat cultist.... yay....
There was always something off with that woman.
When they first met Sofia charmed her way into Alice's good graces, and despite how much Alice rejected Sofia, and was quite rude about it, she clearly liked the attetion, as evidenced by the ever present blush the came ot her face every time Sofia dropped in.
Sofia was doing welll nowadays.... maybe she didn't need the black market. yeah.||

((crush, friend, contact, and now.... Acquaintance))

[pale hornet]

||Sofia panted heavily, trying to catch her breath and not believing her own senses.
Was that real? A dream? Looking at her bloody cutlass in one hand, and the goat headed scepter in her other Sofia shuddered.
She vaguely remembered carbon Monoxide poisonings having symptoms like this.
Whatever the hell that was, she was selling all this meat and goat parts and she was installing carbon monoxide sensors and whatever other sensors that could detect ANYTHING that might explain that away as just a figment of her imagination.||
Pyxis needed her. Sofia couldn't let her mind fall apart. Maybe it was time to move on to some new challenge, find something to occupy their minds rather than dwelling on what just happened.
and trenchers? Poison of the soul plain and simple.

(Thus ends Sofia Melton's story.)
End Character Log.

A bloody scrap of paper
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