1.10
As the ship approaches the mechanical octopus, it begins showing holographic advertisements for products that enhance the strange honking things' coating, apparently known as 'car wax'.
"Need a fix-up after the Skyfall? Want to look stunning for the upcoming race? Or just going out for an afternoon drive? TangerineCorp Ultra Liquid-Wax delivers maximum synthetic protection, durability, depth of color, and reflectivity for your coating needs."There is a holographic visual of a strange honking thing honking in an excited and satisfied manner, showing off its shiny waxed coating.
"TangerineCorp Ultra Liquid-Wax. If you've got the time, we've got the shine." 
"C...car...? Is that what these strange honking things are called?" A string of radio ads begins flooding the ships communications systems, and they all seem to be about car wax.
"A shine that lasts forever." "Sparkly cars go far!" "See us you must, or else you will rust!" "These 'cars' really seem to fancy their wax..." "Say, this seems like a good time to test a translation device I've been working on to better help us understand and communicate with these beings. I'm going to try and interact with the 'car' we collected earlier. Please stand by..." "Ehem. Hello, comrade Car?" 
"Honk-honk, honk honk-honk. Honk-honk honk honk honk?" -> "Greetings, strange bio-crawler. Was that something about car wax I just heard?" "Err, yes. We received numerous car wax advertisements through our communications systems just now. Anyway, can you tell me about yourself?" "I like car wax. TangerineCorp is great but they're an industry giant and I like helping out the little guys. Waxomax got some nice gel stuff." "Right. How about something related to your history and what you're doing here?" "I got some shopping history with TangerineCorp. Their liquid-wax is nice but sometimes you just want a rough waxing, y'know?" "Uh huh... Um, is there anything not related to wax you can tell me? Like who you are and how you came to be here?" "Well, my name's Micky, and I was driving along after exploding out of a Great Steel Bucket when the Skyfall began. I was trying to warn you guys about it when you guys decided to pick me up and put me in here. So that's how I came to be here. Least you could do is get me some wax." "A-Ah, of course. I'll see what I can do about that. Thank you for the chat, Micky." Dr. Prawning turns off the translation device and switches back to the crew communication line.
"Did you guys get that? It seems these beings are sentient and quite capable of advanced communication, despite a seemingly relentless interest in wax." 
"Well, at least we know it's relatively harmless. But I sure as hell ain't gonna go off lookin' to get this thing its wax. We got more important things to worry about, like the situation in the systems room, not to mention the damn mission." 
"Oh right, sir, since the air-sonar is out of commission for the time being, we should switch to using organic photon neuro-processed sonar." "Hmm, right. I forgot we had that ability. This must've been what lobsters had to do for detection purposes before air-sonar was invented." "Organic photon neuro-processed sonar? Wait, isn't that just looking with our eyes?" "It's more than just looking with our eyes! It's squinting and focusing really hard with our eyes! And at the same time not really focusing at all and just sort of zoning out. Combine that with our lobster intuition and we've got this photon-pulse thing going on that's sort of like a primitive air-sonar." "Ah yes, I feel like a real cave-lobster now." A repetitive thumping sound suddenly begins filling the tunnel, carrying through into the interior of the ship. At the same time the lights in the tunnel begin pulsing in sync with the thumping while also changing colors.
"Hey, I'm detecting something up ahead with my neuro-processed sonar!"The capsule like thing soon begins emitting multiple color-changing laser beams which twirl around occasionally drawing patterns and pictures on the walls. The laser beams seem relatively harmless.
"Woah! My neuro-processed sonar is detecting a lot of snazziness in the tunnel ahead!" Somewhere in the background everyone hears a voice say
"pants off dance off." "What was that!?" "I don't know but I think we should listen to them!" "But Steppy you're not even wearing pants!" "I mean metaphorically!" Steppy begins dancing, the rest of the crew joining and thumping along with the beat, save for Captain Hardclaw, who is not amused.
"HEY! Stop this nonsense right NOW! We still have a damn mission to complete!" His voice is loud and jogs the dancing crew out of their trance.
"I don't know where this tunnel is taking us or if we can even find a way out! Turn us around Johnny, we're gettin' the hell out of here and back on track!" "Aww I was just gettin' into it." "Guess you gotta put those metaphorical pants back on." "We're going back up? T-to those swarming striped horrors?..." Johnny turns the ship around and flies back out the way they came, leaving the prismatic party tunnel and flying out of the giant clam and onto the predatory surface once again.
The surface has changed a bit since earlier, as the pineapple rainstorm has become more of a drizzle, and much of the fallen pineapple pieces have been eaten by the Zebras, most of whom seem to have migrated elsewhere, though a few packs continue to scour around looking for leftover pineapple.
A few mech-unicorns roam the plains, looking for larvae to eat while avoiding the lurking fork-snakes, while some of the surviving larvae have found their ways up the beacon stems, turning into cocoons to eventually hatch into wasps. The strange honking things known as 'cars' have calmed down since the pineapple rain lessened, and are cruising around peacefully with their windows open. All in all things on the surface have become a lot more settled.
The ship continues on its way, and soon nears its mission destination as the day approaches late evening. There is a small village up ahead, soft glows emanating from behind some of the windows of the buildings. Mysterious bipeds in white coats and funny hats and wielding knives can be seen walking around the place, going about their business.
"We're nearing Croid 7 now and... it looks like a human settlement. Little is known about these bipedal creatures, but those knives they carry around make me more than a little nervous." "Mmm, so we're finally here. Let's start taking in data and atmospheric readings. Poseidon knows this is already gonna be a damn long report."
Giant wasp [contained in lab]
Micky the car [contained in lab]
Small piece of buttery cheesy bread [stored in lab]
Author
Topic: New Worlds (ISG) (Read 9208 times)