Chapter I
Rivet smacks the last of the Sand Toads right in the face with her trusty FissionMallet Eon 14— a shiny, teratannium-plated hammer with an oversized head— sending the dark tan-coloured reptile soaring through the air, out the open door of her messy old ship repair shop, and back into the sandy dunes beyond, where it belongs. The critter, which hits the ground back-first, scrabbles to its feet instantly. It takes one look at the silver Lombax, who is poised to strike again with her Mallet, and scampers away— leaping into the nearest available burrow.
A small smirk spreads across Rivet's muzzle, and despite the fact the toad is now gone, she waves. "Byyyee! I hope you guys learned your lesson this time 'round! If not, please feel free to stop by again." With that, the feline lifts her Mallet over her shoulder and settles the multi-purpose tool onto the magnetic mount on the back of her jumpsuit top. She steps outside herself, retying her orange scarf so it's more secure around her neck— before turning around and gazing at her shop with an almost sad expression.
Almost.
"So long," Rivet murmurs, pressing a square blue button on the glove of her left hand. The shop door hums, and starts rolling shut. "Adventure awaits."
Rivet's icy blue eyes lock onto the entrance of the Galactic Ranger recruitment event— she quickens the pace, transitioning from a fast walk to a steady jog. As she grows closer, the Lombax can see that the streets of Kyzil village have been converted into an obstacle course. Not exactly surprising— what better way to evaluate potential candidates' tactical prowess than such a course? Rivet just hopes it's not too dangerous, for the Rangers' sake.
Otherwise… bam. Lawsuit. Not so much from her (she doesn't have enough bolts for a lawyer anyway), but literally anyone else who might run the course. Most people generally don't enjoy breaking and/or losing a limb or two.
"Greetings cadets! And welcome to the Galactic Ranger recruitment event! Step into the training course, and let's test your mettle!" Bolted to a small steel plate buried in the sand to the right of the larger circular metal platform— which is placed in the exact centre of the event's entrance, give or take an inch— is a Qwark-Bot with a spring in place of legs.
Rivet reaches back over her shoulder and pulls her Mallet off her jumpsuit's mount. With a single swing, she smacks the Qwark-Bot directly in the face.
No response. Figures.
The young feline shrugs and settles her Mallet back into its place on her back before sprinting past the Qwark-Bot and onto the recruitment course. Her knee-high black leather boots thunk with each step taken, the soles sinking slightly in the sand. "Okay, Rivet," she mutters to herself, her voice slightly uncertain. "You can do this."
The speaker closest to the Lombax crackles to life, startling her. There's a mild squelch, followed by a voice once the static clears up.
"Hello, recruit! Cora Veralux here. Show us how quick you can be on your feet by jumping over these obstacles!"
Rivet skids to a halt just as she reaches the start of a small, metal bridge with hollow steel poles of varying lengths and thickness all bolted together to serve as barriers to hurl oneself over. Towards the end of the bridge, the feline can see that the ramp that used to be there the day before has now been temporarily replaced by a short ladder.
She leaps over the first two with ease, with a few inches to spare. The third one Rivet jumps and grabs onto— curling her gloved fingers around the metal pole— and pivots herself over onto the other side. Her boots hit the platform with a soft clink. The feline then makes short work of the ladder, swiftly climbing up to the edge of the cliff. She clambers over the edge, and as soon as she's back onto her feet, she sprints towards the big, red circular button placed neatly on the ground ahead.
Rivet plants her boot on the top of the button, and the crimson-coloured piece of plastic sinks slightly into the black metal trim. The lightbulb inside the button flashes, switching over from red to green.
"A good Ranger is always mindful of their surroundings. Hop across these moving platforms!"
"And try not to die," Rivet mutters, peering over the edge of the stationary platform she's stepped onto.
Nothing below but hundreds of feet to fall to one's own death. How many bolts would it have cost to put some kind of safety net or platform under the moving platforms? Certainly a lot less than what would be lost in— again— a lawsuit.
Rivet crouches low, taking a deep breath. And as soon as the first moving platform swerves into position in front of her, she hurls herself over the abyss. And almost falls to her death. Thankfully, Rivet has good balance, so she manages to steady herself.
She crouches again, and leaps once the second moving platform moves into place.
After she repeats the process a third time, the Lombax is safely on the other side. Rivet releases a small, relieved sigh, wiping her slightly sweaty forehead with her hand. "I'm gonna have a serious talk with whoever designed this course. 'Cause that went from non-threatening to death-defying pretty dang quick…"
"Good job!"
A little late to the party, aren't we? Rivet thinks, shrugging as she awaits whatever Cora is going to say next.
"You could be the recruit we've been looking for. Keep moving to the next part of the course!"
"Will do," Rivet quips back, even though it's very unlikely Cora can hear her. If anything, these are most likely just pre-recorded lines that are set to play whenever a potential recruit manages to make it to a checkpoint.
"Look up here— it's me, Captain Qwark! Well, it's not really me— just a blimp with a…"
Rivet just tunes out Qwark at this point— as he doesn't seem to have anything particularly important to say— and jogs down the path ahead. She hops off a small ledge onto a slightly larger section of land a few feet below. She doesn't waste a second, sprinting on ahead— the Lombax quickly reaches what appears to be a group of six small blue teleporters centred around a large button not unlike the one she used to activate the moving platforms from earlier.
Except this one is green.
Still, if she puts pressure on it, perhaps it might trigger something. So the feline places a foot on the plastic top, and feels the thing sink a bit. Suddenly, stacks of two crates each appear in a flash of blue light atop the teleporters.
"Hey there, recruit! I'm Brax Lectrus, and my specialty is brute force. Let's see how well you can bash these crates!"
Rivet shrugs again, reaching over her shoulder and grabbing her Mallet. "Hee-yahh!" She swings, smashing the crate in front of her into a million splinters. Bolts spill out, and swirl through the air towards her weapon. As the little multi-coloured bits of currency make contact with the Mallet, they disappear in small flashes of golden light— teleporting into the little red bolt magnetizer on the Lombax's belt. And all the rest of the crates are, too, smashed to pieces with great ease.
(Working as a full-time ship mechanic on a backwater planet tends to build muscle. Hunting Sand Toads for dinner helps too.)
The feline thinks it's a little odd that they put any bolts in the crates in the first place, but hey, Rivet's not going to complain. She could use the bolts.
"Hey, that was pretty good! Keep moving— it's time to get our hands on some firepower!"
Ahh, so that would be why there were bolts in the crates. That makes sense— it wouldn't exactly be fair to make someone buy a weapon they may or may not only use on the recruitment course with their own bolts.
"Go ahead and grab a weapon from this Gadgetron Vendor! And a neural interface too, if you don't have one already."
Rivet's already approached the vendor by the time Brax has finished speaking. It's a boxy-looking thing with shiny silver and bright blue plating, with a single antenna sticking out each side of the metal cube. Above the cube floats a black orb carved to look vaguely like a capital G— and slowly floating around it is a holographic projection of the corporation responsible for this vendor's creation.
Gadgetron.
Rivet looks the machine up and down for a moment, before pressing on the glass half-sphere sticking out the top of the brightly coloured cube. "Yipe!" The feline stumbles backwards, very much startled— as from the aforementioned half-sphere a holographic screen flickers into existence in front of the soon-to-be-customer.
On the left section of the screen, Rivet can see the weapons currently available for purchase— as well as their prices, pre-modification capabilities, and ammo count. On the section of the screen to the right, she can see the head and shoulders of a green-scaled, reptilian alien she's never seen before. Their name is apparently Moby, and their pronouns are he/him, according to the icon under his mini-screen. "Moby" gives her a small wave and a pleasant smile. "Hey there, fuzzball!"
Out of all the greetings this guy could've come up with…
Rivet shakes her head, mumbling a "hi," and focusing her eyes on the weapons.
Let's see… Proton Drum… nahh, it sounds kinda lousy. Combustor? Maybe, I've heard it's a pretty decent weapon. Devastator? It looks awesome, but I don't have enough bolts. Rivet's eyes then lock onto the Bomb Glove. "Whoa…"
Moby tilts his head, as if looking to see what she's looking at. Maybe he can, seeing as he pipes up, "You lookin' at the Bomb Glove, right? Yeahh, that's a nice one, right there. Used it to unclog my toilet once. You wanna buy it?" An awkward pause. "The Bomb Glove, I mean. Not the toilet." He then mumbles under his breath, "Or what's left of it…"
Forty bombs per ammo capsule, plus deadly shrapnel that accompanies each explosion and can impale nearby enemies— and a neat color scheme? And at a low price due to being on sale?
"Heck yeah!"
Rivet uploads the required amount of bolts to pay for the weapon, and soon enough, the Bomb Glove is in her possession. She purchases a neural interface as well, to store the Glove as well as her Mallet in. And her Swingshot too— that one went into its own Quick Select ring.
"Thanks!" Rivet waves goodbye to Moby, who waves back just as quickly.
"No problem. Pleasure doin' business with you, kiddo!"
Rivet stumbles into a wide, circular rocky section surrounded by a tall metal fence— much like the rest of the course— panting heavily as she bends over and briefly rests her hands on her knees.
"It's time for the final challenge!" Qwark's loud voice painfully tears into the Lombax's ears. "Survive the brutal onslaught of enemies, and you just might be our next Galactic Ranger!… or maybe an intern."
"… I really hope that was just a bad joke, and— YIPE!" The feline re-equips her Bomb Glove and backs away quickly, just as a trio of battle-bots speed towards her, flamethrower-like arm-cannons blazing. She lobs a bomb at them, blasting the battle-bots to smithereens in one shot. "Ha! How do ya like me now, suckers?!"
Meanwhile, Qwark just keeps yammering away over the speakers all throughout the explosive battle.
"If you see me at the event, please do not run up and insist on shaking hands."
Five more battle-bots teleport into the arena— only for two to be met with instant destruction. Rivet dashes to the right as the other three try to roast her to death with their flamethrowers, and she tosses another bomb in their direction. The explosion takes all three bots with it.
"Gotcha!"
"However, feel free to admire my impressive iron-hard abs and my raw animal magnetism! But NO touching."
"Geez, and I used to look up to this guy while growing up," Rivet mutters, shaking her head at Qwark's words and focusing her eyes on the next swarm of baddies zooming on her. She still admires Qwark's past heroics to this day, but her idealized mental image of him had faded away a looong time ago.
The feline lobs bomb after bomb, leaving behind smoldering, smoking piles of metal and charred Sand Toad carcasses (because of course they had to have those too) in her wake.
Finally, finally, the mini-arena is all clear of enemies.
Aside from their remains, of course.
Rivet is bent over, resting her hands on her knees again as she tries to catch her breath. What a rush that was! She can still feel the adrenaline from the fight coursing through her blood vessels.
"Excellent job, cadet! Come see me after the show!"
"If you have heart, then you have what it takes."
"You don't have what it takes."
"Excuse me?" Rivet glares at Qwark, who's sitting in the chair across from her, with his boots propped on the steel table stationed between them. "I got through that entire recruitment course without losing a limb— and my life— and you think I don't have what it takes?"
"She has a point, Captain," Cora pipes up from where she stands beside Rivet's chair, tapping away at the datapad in her hands. "Rivet managed to make it through the entire recruitment course, and in a relatively short time too."
"And she only had to bust open, like, two Nanotech crates," Brax adds, also looking at his own datapad. He's sitting in the corner, mostly covered by shadow due to the dim lighting.
This place feels more like an interrogation room than anything else…
"What about her history?" Qwark, if his expression is anything to go by, still doesn't look that impressed. Heck, he looks bored.
"I already ran a background check on Rivet, and other than illegal possession of a black market accelerator and an illegal gravity repulsor— both of which were years ago— she doesn't have that much of a criminal history," Cora answers, lowering her datapad and looking directly at the green spandex-ed Ranger. "C'mon, Captain. It's a no brainer. We can take in this clearly capable and qualified recruit— OR we can close up shop here and go to the next planet on our list, and hope— emphasis on the word 'hope'— that we'll come across another good recruit with as minimal of a record as her."
"Hmm…" Qwark rubs his chin with his gloved hand. "Next planet it is!"
The next thing Rivet knows, she's being shoved out the door back into the sprawling plateau of desert cliffs beyond. The sun is starting to sink behind the mountain, leaving the darkness of what will soon be night in its wake. The Lombax whirls around, desperate. "Please! Just gimme a chance! That's all I ask!" She knows Qwark doesn't belong on the pedestal she used to put him on back when she was a kid, but she'd have thought the guy would at least be reasonable.
Then again, that guy on the radio earlier today said something about Qwark drawing a bunch of scribbles and a duck for a speech…
"Sorry, no time!" Qwark gives her a smile that's anything but apologetic. "Galaxy in jeopardy! Get back out there! And remember, you can do anything… as long as you're me." And with that, the Captain slams the door right in her face.
"…" Rivet takes a step back, glaring at the door. If looks could kill, this door would be a bubbling puddle of Raritanium by now. "What a jerk."
At the very least, he could've tried to evaluate me on strategy before kicking me out…
Night descends on Kyzil Plateau.
Rivet sighs as she works on repairing the old engine of Mr. Micron's ship. The elderly Tharpod pretty much abandoned his ship, leaving it at her repair shop after nearly crashing the darn thing due to her… err, improvements. And so the Lombax started working on fixing it up, in the hopes that— if she could just get her hands on a Robotic Ignition System— it could be her ticket off Veldin. Of course, the blasted things cost half the price of a brand new ship, so she's probably not going to be able to get one anytime soon.
Which means probably another five years of putting off my adventure.
Rivet lets her head fall against the open hood of the ship, dropping her tools— which hit the floor in a series of loud clatters.
"Why do I even bother…?"
I'm never getting off this rock, am I? As if for an answer, a faint roaring from somewhere outside reaches the feline's ears. Rivet lifts her head, and sprints out her open garage door. Streaked against the dark blue sky of night is a stream of fire stretching down to touch the ground— and a second later, close to the other side of Kyzil Plateau, it does. A ripple tears violently through ground, threatening to knock Rivet off her feet.
A few seconds tick by, and the rumbling slowly dies down.
Rivet stares at the sky, where the streak of fire had been just a moment earlier. And then her eyes flick back to the mountains and cliffs ahead— somewhere not too far beyond, that U.F.O. (unidentified falling object) crashed. Just as the Lombax had started giving up hope, something strange had quite literally fallen into her backyard.
Maybe this is a sign.
And if one thing's for certain, Rivet's not going to ignore it.
"Wooo!" Rivet disengages her Swingshot cable and lands on the other side of the gap in a low crouch. The silver feline sprints to the edge of the cliff ahead, where she can see smoke billowing from the crash site below. She leaps, and slides down on the sandy slope on her feet (she'd rather not get sand in her clothes)— sending small rocks tumbling. Once Rivet's at the bottom, she can now see that it's a shuttle that crashed. Or was a shuttle. The thing is quite literally in pieces, as well as ablaze. It's very unlikely anyone could've survived.
And yet…
Squinting through the thick-ish smoke, coughing as it gets into her lungs, Rivet can just barely make out something… unusual amongst the debris. She takes a few steps forward, and kneels down to have a better look.
At first, she thought it was a toaster. But as it turns out, it's actually a small silver robot with a spherical head, a body shaped in the form of a trapezoidal prism, and little feet that are quite a bit smaller than its hands. Its round, dark grey eyes are tightly shut, and the antenna on the top of its head glows a dim green.
Rivet reaches down and curls her fingers around the little bot. She pulls it up out of the sand, the mineral particles spilling off the shiny metal and back onto the ground.
"Hey there, li'l guy."
Of course, there's no response— not that she was expecting one, anyway. So Rivet tucks the little robot under her left arm and stands up, taking a final look around the wreckage to see if she can find anything else potentially useful lying around. She spots what looks like a damaged infobot lying on the ground deeper in the debris field, and she scoops that up too. The feline then steps out of the crash site, and starts trodding along the beaten-down path that leads back to her shop.
Rivet looks back down at the silver robot under her arm.
"Let's see if I can get you and your buddy here all fixed up, huh?"
"Okay, and now for the last part… a new battery!"
Rivet triumphantly pulls the aforementioned object out of one of her toolboxes, and slides it into place inside the currently open panel on the silver robot's back. She's already repaired the infobot by this point, though she was too excited about working on fixing up the other bot to view whatever transmission is on the infobot yet. The Lombax then pushes the panel shut and turns the little robot over.
She frowns when nothing happens.
"Hmmm… maybe I accidentally put the battery in backwards, or—"
Rivet yelps, startled, as the robot suddenly sits up— its eyelids sliding open to reveal the luminous crimson eyes underneath. "The final digit of pi is…"
The robot's voice is deep— very deep— and seems to have a hint of… some kind of accent. In any case, it's definitely a contrast to Rivet's own voice, which tends to be higher pitched to the point of sounding like a child's— especially when she's excited.
"Who are you?" The little bot is looking directly at the feline now, and Rivet realises it's addressing her.
"I'm Rivet," the Lombax answers, offering it a small smile. "My pronouns are she/her. And you are…?"
"My designation is 'Warbot B5429671.' My alternate designation, for the sake of you organics and your sub-par memory capacity, is 'Klunk,'" the robot explains. "With a K. And my pronouns are he/him. I am on a mission of galactic importance— I do not suppose you would be willing to assist?"
"That depends on what you need," Rivet tells him warily. Maybe the little guy hit his head a little too hard when his shuttle crashed…
"I must deliver this infobot—" Klunk gestures to the infobot lying next to him on the worktable, "— to the proper authorities. The proper authorities being the Galactic Rangers—" Of course. "— before Chairman Drek succeeds in his plans, and there is nothing left of the galaxy to save."
"Wait, whaddya mean?" Nothing left of the galaxy to save? What in Solana could he be talking about?
Klunk smacks his forehead with the palm of his little metal hand, sighing in obvious annoyance. "Watch this." With his other hand, he reaches over to the infobot and presses the bright blue button on its chest.
The infobot comes to life, opening its mouth and the screen inside expands. The pitch black underneath the glass crackles, and tears away to reveal the face of a small, squat Blarg with greasy black hair pulled back into a pony tail. They're also wearing an expensive-looking suit. They present an air of affability, though Rivet can sense that the Blarg is anything but affable— and they haven't even said a word yet.
"Hello citizens of—" An image of a planet with lush, green covered continents surrounded by oceans appears briefly on the screen, with the word "Novalis" popping up underneath, in bright blue digital typeface. After a few seconds, it cuts back to the Blarg in the suit. "My race, the Blarg, have a small problem. Our planet has become so polluted, overpopulated, and poisonous, that we are no longer able to dwell here. But I, Chairman Drek, have a solution!
"We are constructing a pristine new world using only the choice selection of planetary components available. So, what does this mean to you, you might ask? Using highly sophisticated technology, which you couldn't possibly understand, we will be extracting a large portion of your planet, and adding it to our new one. Unfortunately, this change in mass will cause your planet to spin out of control and drift into the sun where it will explode into a flaming ball of gas- but of course, sacrifices must be made. Thank you for your co-operation."
"Aaaaand cut!"
Drek doesn't seem to realise that the camera is still rolling, so he then dissolves into an angry rant.
"And if you don't like it, you can take your whiny, sniveling, snot-nosed populations, form a line behind me, and kiss my—"
A pause that's pregnant with complete silence.
"What do you mean, we're still on?… Well, turn it off, you idiot!"
The screen fades to black, and shrinks back into the infobot's mouth. Rivet growls, clenching her fists. "That guy's going to destroy an entire planet— to make a new one? That's— that's insane!"
"That is why I must bring this transmission to the Galactic Rangers," Klunk tells her. "Drek will not rest until he has destroyed every planet in the galaxy."
Rivet rubs her chin thoughtfully with her gloved fingers, processing this information. Assuming Klunk has a Robotic Ignition System like she suspects, then she should be able to take him to the Galactic Ranger Home Base— which is situated on planet Marcadia, in Capital City. But what will happen to Novalis, if they use whatever little time they have to give the infobot to the Rangers?
"Do ya have a Robotic Ignition System by any chance?" Rivet finally asks.
"Yes," Klunk answers, tilting his head slightly as he looks up at her. "Version seven-six-six."
"Okay, here's the deal. You help me get my ship started, we go to Novalis and see if we can stop Drek's invasion. After that, I'll take you to the Rangers. Sound good?"
Klunk narrows his eyes, and his lower jaw tilts into a frown. "I do not see how one Lombax, a warbot defect such as myself, and an infobot will be able to take down an army of well-trained soldiers and powerful robots— both of which will be heavily armed."
"Novalis might be space dust by the time we get the infobot to the Rangers," Rivet shoots back. "Those people need our help. And I'm not inept, y'know. I can hold my own in a fight."
"Oh, very well." Klunk's scowl— Rivet assumes it's a scowl, anyway (it's kind of hard to tell)— deepens somewhat. "But only because you are my best chance of getting this infobot to the Rangers."
"Alright! My ship's… this way?" The silver Lombax watches as Klunk, after he stuffed the infobot into his chest compartment, tries to climb down from the worktable. "You need some help there?" Now he's just dangling by his hands.
"I am not inept, Lombax," Klunk retorts sourly, finally just letting go of the table edge and hitting the floor with a loud, well, clunk. "See?"
Rivet just shrugs, giving the bot a small smile as he quickly scrambles back onto his feet. "My ship's this way." She leads him around the table, where the ship sits on the floor— it still looks pretty beat up, but it's in much better shape now than it was last week. "She may not look that impressive, but she'll get us to Novalis and the Ranger Base in one piece."
"Somehow… I am not so sure about that," Klunk mutters.
"Yee of little faith." Rivet shakes her head and chuckles, before gazing at the ship once more, that smile still gracing her muzzle. "Adventure, here we come."