A little plannig, a little history, and a little tea. Maybe.

<<Snip>>
"The gardens are kind of already occupied," Jay said to the rats, "The Huzzards do live there."
"We only require a small area, and tools to farm," the rat explained. Despite his hostile stance and intimidating state, the tone of his voice and the look in his eyes betrayed him. "Food, we need food."
"It doesn't sound that hard," Dr. South shrugged.
"We could go find the tools," suggested Ransom, "Might give us a good excuse to explore the ship."
"I, of course, will be leading the expedition," South proclaimed.
"As long as you don't crash," Ransom said with a smirk.
"You're still no better!"
<<End Snip>>

"Not my fault." South held up his finger and pointed at Ransom.

Jay cleared his throat to break in on the conversation. “What makes you think you should lead the expedition? You're new here.”

South smiled. “I dunno, really, I just always wanted to say that.” he chuckled. Jay frowned. “Still, like I said, you're new here, both of you. You don't know a thing about this ship.”

“A ship is a ship,” started Ransom, “if there's any logic to it's design then it shouldn't be to difficult to navigate.”

“Logic?” snorted Cassandra, holding back a laugh, “That's one thing this ship has never had.”

“Aye, she's right,” South cut in, smiling with a subtly pleased, 'watch this' smile, “it's a ship yes, but no ordinary ship.”

“What do you mean?” asked Ransom as South looked up at the high ceiling of the promenade, tongue in cheek. “This is a Dwarf class mining ship, they didn't make many of these.”

“How do you know that?” asked Jay. “They're slow, difficult to maintain, parts break down easily...”

“Oi!”

Jay sounded insulted that someone would call his favorite rust bucket...well...a rust bucket. “...parts are hard to find, the vents get clogged, etc. it's five miles of ship that should be in a museum.

“Watch yourself, buddy I love this ship!”

“But they are highly adaptable, which make them a brilliant commodity in any situation.”

“You seem to know an awful lot about these ships.”

“No,” south crossed his arms and smiled, “but this is no ordinary dwarf ship,” he beamed, “it took me a while at first to recognize the where I knew the ship name from. Oh and this paint job.” he smiled. “Am I missing something?” asked Ransom. “You know this ship?” said Jay. “Do I know this ship? This is the Blue Dwarf! The first ship outfitted with a wormhole drive, and the first and only ship to generate a freak wormhole 300 times the size of it's capacity! Well, bofore falling into it and dissappearing from time and space. You people are famous!”

“Wait, wait, wait...” Cass held up her hand, “...famous?”

“Greatest space mystery in history. The ship that vanished after rebelling against the JMC and nearly destroying one of Jupiter’s moons. How could you not be famous?”

“Well...”

“What this really means, though, is the layout is different. Corridors and systems rerouted to make way for that oversized wormhole drive you've got. By the look of it I'll venture that it isn't working, is it?”

“No.” Jay shook his head.

South yawned. “Sorry,” he said, still yawning his hand covering his mouth, “didn't sleep well last night. Didn't have much of a breakfast either. Is there any tea on this ship?”

“Excuse me,” Chutney broke in, “but about our demand?”

“Yes of course,” Jay turned back to the ferret, “it will take us a bit of time. The tools need to be scrounged up, and we need to negotiate a land treaty with the Huzzards, somehow strike a deal with them to let you live there. That might not be easy, though, our history with them is a bit...troubled.”

“Perhaps,” said Ransom, “we could exchange some of our new food stocks with them?”

“No, they grow most their own food, and we have just enough for the crew for only a few months.”

“Technology?” suggested South, “I can't imagine quite what a Huzzard is, but if it's sapient enough to grow food, then I imagine they would be willing to strike a deal if we, say, showed them new ways of irrigation?”

“Maybe, but, they're mainly warriors, if we offered tech, they'd want weapons, and armed lizzard people is the last thing we need wight now.”

“Lazzard people?” South smiled, “What kind of lizard people are we talking? Homo-reptilia? Something like that?”

“Or,” started Cass, “if they start giving trouble we could gas the place.”

“Cassandra, no.”

“There are types of non-lethal gas, you know.”

“Anyways, we need to do two things; find or make some tools, and make a treaty with the Huzzards. We've made peace with them before, so I hope they're willing to listen. So far as tools go, look about and see what you can find.” Jay looked about for him, “Who's going to do what, 'cuz while I like the idea of backup, I doubt the Huzzards will be too keen on negotiating with a large group of people.”

South picked up his hand and waved it in the air, jumping about and pleading like a kid in a candy store. “Oh! Oh! Can I go please? I want to see the lizard people!”

“Not you.” Jay say flatly. “Aw, why not?”
“You're weird, the Huzzards don't always react well with weird.”

South frowned. “Okay, fine...”

Ransom chuckled. “I thought you'd want to go to see the plant life.”

“Why would I want to see the the—Biologist!! Not botanist, biolog—wait a minuet, 3,000,000 years...actually I bet the plant life would be amazing!”

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OOC – The last thing I remember about the Huzzards is the encounter we had on the promenade, when Justin Pancake had his --*ahem*-- incident with the Archiver's holo tech, (that was a while ago so...) so I hope this is still accurate. So who's gonna search and who's gonna negotiate?

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