Fueled for Departure

"Hyperfuel? No, I'm pretty sure I've already got a sample of that somewhere..."

Despite the intense damage that had been done to them, Chord seemed to be in good spirits still, even locking her arm with the Tuffle. Jujube was a little sheepish, still side-eyeing all that damage. Android or not, she wasn't used to people being blown half to pieces only to turn around and be cheery about it all. She managed to force a smile, which was almost half-convincing at making her look like she wasn't still worried the musician was going to fall apart any minute now.

"Oh, uh -- well, I don't mind you being my problem!" she replied, hastily. "It's just, you should know that Plant is a place with a lot of ... ghosts. Not literal ghosts, I mean, but there's a lot of angry people still thinking about a war that sort of ended a few years ago, but --"

She swept her free hand out in a dismissive gesture. The topic of Tuffle revanchism and Saiyan conquest was probably too deep a topic to go over with someone who'd just been hit by a missile.

She looked back toward the viewport, watching that indiscernible streak of colours as the stars continued to race by the screen. She suspected from speaking with them that the android was a little more innocent to world affairs than she was, and it might be doing a little bit of a disservice to loop them into the kind of work she was doing. But, if she wanted to help.

She took a breath.

"I don't want to kill weak Earthlings," she noted, in an even sort of voice. "But I also don't want Earth to overcorrect because of just how outpowered they are on the -- um, intergalactic stage. The last time I remember an entire people collectively trying to ... fend off a power far greater than them, it led to a whole lot of -- well, you'll see once we make it to the surface of Plant."

She supposed a trip to Plant was as good a crash course in that whole affair that anyone could have hoped for.

"What about you, anyways?" she peeked through the side of her eye again. "You're kind of, erm, strong for a musician. Is it normal for Earth ... android-artists to be so tough?"

"Well--you took a lot of damage, but most people would've been nothing but dust after being hit like that."

She settled down in one of the chairs near Chord, tipping back in it so she could pay attention to the android without quite letting the navigational equipment out of her peripherals. They were probably safe, of course, but with so many warning messages appearing on take-off she still wanted to be sure.

"The air smells pretty bad in some spots," she conceded.

Chord's story was a little familiar: Plant itself wasn't stranger to android designers trying to create new weapons of war, nor their prototypes spinning off in ways they hadn't expected. Ordinarily, it led to a violent end, but the opposite seemed true here. The android across from her seemed almost normal, outside of all the damage and the loose wiring.

"You'll learn more than enough about the planet once we land, but it's... it's sort of that story on repeat. Mass produced war machines or weapons, all fashioned by Tuffles who were trying to delay the inevitable. We lost the war when we couldn't stand up to them with conventional weapons--"

She tapped her arm blaster which was still hooked into place to indicate it, before finally disengaging the lock and settling it off to the side. She certainly didn't need it now, unless the android was a far better actor than she thought.

"They came up with this kind of poisonous gas that scarred the landscape as a way of dealing with our enemies. Even at their strongest, the gas -- Destron -- could weaken them and bring them to within range for where ordinary soldiers could team up and overwhelm them."

She glanced aside to the viewport. The next part would be difficult to sell, but she supposed if the android was traveling with her, it would come out eventually anyways.

"I decided that--if we were beaten, then we shouldn't be committing crimes against nature to try to delay that fact. We should have gone to the negotiating table or taken to exile instead of fashion the weapons we did. So, I -- ah -- destroyed a bunch of the stuff and got labelled a turncoat."

She kept her gaze averted only a moment longer, before she forced a little smile to return her gaze to Chord. 

"So, see -- I'm probably going to need a little of your charm, or maybe a few of your shields, if I plan to return to the Tuffle sector. I -- don't know what my reception would be in the Saiyan sector, but I don't imagine they're fond of me either."

"But, hey--if it all goes bad, at least you can write a song about me."

Jujube startled again, this time when Chord took her hand. The musician seemed thrilled with them, and their interpretation of what she'd explained -- but, she felt a little uneasy in the pit of her stomach. Through all of their excitement, she was sure that Chord had read her wrong.

"I--" she stammered out.

"I mean, I'm not -- I'm against the military-industrial -- all of that, sure! But I'm not, um, any kind of saint! I mean, I don't stick it to all of the men, just the ones who are causing the build-up of military and -- and all of that."

She reached back to fuss with her hair, as if to buy her a little more time to explain. It was clear that Chord was a rebel at heart, but Jujube had never considered herself that way. The things she believed were a little less appealing, when you said them out loud. It was hard to figure out just how to word them, but she drew a shallow breath, and resolved to do her best.

"When we lost the war, I thought -- we'd lost. We should have come to terms with that, and either accepted the reality of the situation, or ... gotten stronger, and toppled the Saiyans later. I can deal with authority, I just don't want ... the kinds of horrific crimes-against-nature that we concocted to try to defy fate. All they did was ensure more death across the entire planet so we could delay the inevitable by a few years."

"Which is why--" she paused. "I don't really hate the Saiyans, even if they came as conquerors. I wanted to beat them, and I wished we had of, but we didn't! If that's a good enough law for every animal above and below the sea, why isn't it good enough law for us?"

She held her free hand up, as if indicating it.

"Since then, I've gotten a lot stronger, but I'm still falling behind where -- the real powers in the galaxy are at. If the Tuffles had to devise a gas that nearly destroyed an entire planet to fend off Saiyans that I could vaporize with my arm blaster today, what kind of weapons might they -- or might Earth -- make to fend off the otherworldly powers that roam around the galaxy today?"

"S-so," she finished. "I appreciate all your enthusiasm! Just ... just don't think I'm more of an idealist than I am, you know? I just want less people to die needlessly."

Jujube blinked her eyes as Chord leaned down.

"There isn't any ethical mode of government," the Tuffle agreed, though she wasn't entirely certain she saw how Chord came to the conclusion. Maybe she was more convincing than she thought. "It's one of those things where we just have to find out the circumstances which do the best job of ... well, keeping the world from lighting itself on fire."

"A little fire is going to be important," she noted. "But only to get us where we need to be."

As Chord spoke further, that manic look to their eyes seemed to fade -- at least to Jujube. It was increasingly clear that they were on the same page, somehow: it was one of the first times Jujube had actually seen eye to eye with someone to such an extent on this topic. Literally, in this case.

"Yeah, that's -- that's right. Power should be held by the people who know how to wield it, and not the ones who need to commit horrific crimes against nature to play at a part that they can't ever hope to really embody."

She managed a small smile, but shook her head.

"I'm nowhere near strong enough, or ... um, wise enough to be that person," she added, hastily.

She finally rose from the seat, giving Chord a pat on the intact shoulder as she slipped past her, over to that dubiously-cooled refrigerator in the center of the ship. She cracked it open just slightly to spy the mess that had been made of it from the take-off, but did select two cans that did manage to survive.

She opened one herself, and brought the other to Chord, offering it out to her. It was a simple, metallic silver can with foreign writing on it, but beneath those unfamiliar characters was a label gracefully identifying the substance as Space Lager. Sure enough, the contents were a fairly standard trade lager -- watered down to the point of lacking much taste at all.

"These have stronger cans than the juice that's currently splattered all over the inside of the cooler," she explained.

She reclaimed her seat, and took a sip before finally proceeding to Chord's final question.

"For a start, I just want to see if things are even stable there, but the Saiyans won the war and they should have ... established some kind of control. My priority is really just to make sure that any revanchism from my own people is at a minimum, and that there aren't secret weapons labs brewing up anything ... you know, even worse."

"After that... well, we'll see, right? I promise I'll let you help on any scheme I wind up with!"

Jujube winced at Chord's awkward can-opening. The thought that it'd be any trouble at all had fell entirely from her mind in the moment, but she at least had the grace to pretend as if she was interested in something out of the main viewport while they fumbled with it.

"That little baby--" she said, dully, before realizing what Chord was indicating. She caught sight of the arm blaster, and swooped down to retrieve it.

"It's actually ... well, if you look at the serial number here," she turned it over to display a lengthy series of numbers. "It was a standard issue arm blaster from about ten years ago. Since then, I've modified and maintained it to be a little more functional and a little more powerful."

She twisted the blaster around to indicate various slots for attachments and modules, before setting it back off to the side.

"But, we can probably find someone to help you. I'd do it myself, but you're, um -- too complicated for me," she turned a shade pink. She wasn't used to admitting a job like this was above her head, but she really wasn't an expert with repairs -- Chord might have been a person, but she wasn't the flesh and blood she was used to.

"Oh, about that--" she started, before falling short.

She stared as Chord downed the entire can in moments, and then stared at her own drink with a fit of determination. She tipped the can up and downed the entire thing in ... more than a few moments. It took drink after drink, a couple suspicious pauses to catch herself, and some spilled onto the sofa. Clearly, she wasn't used to chugging drinks, and by the time she stopped, she seemed wholly out of breath.

"You--you know that if we do this--people might have to get, you know, shot!" she chimed in, between breaths. "But, we can talk about that more with dinner. Most of the good places I know got blown up, but ... well, we'll find someplace!"

She stood up, wiping her lips and discretely tucking the can behind her back to conceal that after all of that, she still hadn't managed to drink it all.

"I'll get to making sure our coordinates are properly coordinated, so go um, get comfortable somewhere!"

With that, she turned towards the pilot's seat, to bury herself in work -- before pausing on the way there, to circle back to the refrigerator for another can of the sad-tasting lager. She was always better at math a couple of drinks in.