Exposition Aplomb (Open)

"How was I supposed to know that the Fecalians considered that a sacred relic?!" the green skinned thief of the crew bemoaned as she sat in her chair in the cockpit. "No not the jewels, no not the gold, no not the platinum, no not any of the actual precious metals or gemstones... But the literal steaming pile of-"

Korla's tirade was interrupted by a resounding thwack up the backside of her skull from her Saiyan counterpart. "Well if you had been more careful and watched where you were stepping, we wouldn't have had to run with an entire city of spear wielding backwards non-techs chasing us. And on that note, why the hell were we running from them eh?!" Rassica growled as she glared daggers at the Heran male sighing and slumping in his chair. "We could have easily slaughtered them and taken that city and their planet for ourselves."

Erbia rubbed his temple. "And as I have already said, each time this conversation rears its bloody head like a freaking hydra, that planet was so under developed that taking it wouldn't have gained us anything other than trouble from the Galactic Patrol." he retorted, sounding exasperated all the while. "There was no existing infrastructure, no actual mining operations, and the locals barely understood even the most basic of Basic. Even with the damned translator working at top speed... Nobody wants to purchase a planet with a workforce that can't understand the orders you give them, nor a planet that you'd have to pay extra on top of to get up and running." the Heran mercenary pointed out.

This fact seemed to mollify the Saiyan woman's temper for the time being, although Erbia could tell from the way she was tapping her finger on her crossed arms that it was probably not the last time he was going to be hearing about this. He had lately been turning down a fair few more jobs than any of them would have liked, although that one with the Tuffle had turned out to be a decent call at least seeing as how the Saiyans won the war on Plant. He hated working for the losing side of a war... Bad for reputation and all that.

Then there had been the trade convoy guard offer, the offer for a "diplomatic escort" which was effectively just a glorified booty call bodyguard job offer... Hell, he'd even turned down the offer of joining in on some raids from some of the old crew from back in the day. Erbia couldn't put his finger on it, but he'd been in something of a slump lately for some reason. Some kind of malaise, and it ticked him off even more than his crew. He wasn't sure what it was that was causing it, but it had started after being on that little blue rock called Earth... Maybe something in the air or water there had affected him somehow? Whatever the case, now that they were returning there maybe he could get some of his mojo back.

"Looks like we're approaching Ear-" Korla paused, her tone having gone to one of clear confusion. "Umm... Not to question your piloting skills here boss, but are you sure you put in the right co-ordinates?" she asked, causing both of the more combatitve members of the crew to look at her curiously.

"Of course I'm sure, I even had the navi-computer double check it. Why?" Erbia asked, not sure he liked where this was going. Planets shifted all the time sure, but by no more than a few micrometers here and there. Nothing large or such. Hell, the navi-computer had even taken into account rotation patterns to ensure that they were still arriving at the right planet.

"Well... sorry but err, didn't there used to be a more intact moon in orbit over it?" the green skinned Broljin asked, gesturing to both the sensor panels as well as the view of the world they were approaching. All three of them looked at the sensor readings before looking out the window, immediately the ships viewport zoomed in on the satellite in dispute.

Indeed at least a quarter of the moon was gone, with small pieces of rocky shrapnel floating in proximity to where it had used to be a singular whole.

"What in the hells..." Rassica whispered as she put to voice what all three of them were thinking. Erbia's face slowly started to break out into a grin, matched soon after by the Saiyans.

The Broljin however looked to her two grinning crewmates and groaned. "Great, something blows out a quarter of a planets moon and you two are of course happy about it... Bloody pair of fight hungry bastards.Course you want to go find who or whatever could take out a chunk of a moon." Korla sighed, although she couldn't help but smirk as well. "Well, their Capital City should have some idea of what the hells been going on whilst we've been away, so I'll land us there." she declared, already setting a landing trajectory for them.

---

A short while later the trio were walking through the streets of the Capital City, with Korla attempting to get access to the local news networks record files via her scouter, whilst Erbia and Rassica tried to ask some of the locals with mixed results. Nobody they asked could agree on what had happened to the moon, or some of them just flat out refused to answer their questions. "So, is it just me or are the humans a little bit less helpful than they were last time we were here?" the Saiyan mercenary asked, the Heran nodding in agreement.

"Aye... Something weird's going on here, and I don't think it's just the moon." he mused, running a hand through his hair and sighing as he rubbed the back of his head. "Probably some local politics bullshit going on again. Would be just our luck to arrive during "Voting Season" or whatever it is they call it here." Erbia theorised, the other two shrugging as it sounded about as good a theory as any as to why the locals weren't being very helpful.