Qwark's an early to bed early to rise kind of guy- it's something he picked up living with cyclo-monkeys for parents. You just didn't do anything after the sun set, really, other than hole up in a tree and snore.
So Qwark is out like a light on the lower bunk before he even hears Ratchet, dead to the world and snoring loudly.
He awoke early the following morning to his own O2 mask fitted over his head, shaking the crust from his eyes and yanking it off, tasting wax.
The other canister of cough suppressant had been screwed into the mask.
Qwark yawned loudly and went back to the main hall, carefully stepping over the sleeping refugees the best he could, noting the scattered police taking watch over everyone else in shifts. Qwark made his way to the washing area, and retrieved his and Ratchet's clothes, freshly pressed and faintly warm. Qwark's boots had not only been cleaned, but polished, too; he almost asked where Ratchet's shoes had gone before realizing they'd sunk in Veldin mud, ready to be dug up by archaeologists in a few millennia time.
Qwark went into the shower room to change back into his own familiar attire, cracked his back, and carried the scrubs with him. Having a change of clothes that fit was a smart idea.
Rounding back to the main room, Qwark grabbed a tray and took square shaped oatmeal ration blocks- two for himself, one for Ratchet- hot water in foam cups, and packets of 'cocoa' (really chocolate flavored vitamin powder to mix into their drinks so that children would take it), as well as another foam cup of black coffee for himself. He'd never actually seen Ratchet drink coffee- if the lombax wanted some, he could get it himself.
Qwark deposited the tray on the desk in their bunk in the detention center, eating with gusto. The 'dinner' from the night before was hardly palatable, but the oatmeal squares were at least decent, and the coffee helped push him over. The 'hot cocoa' was actually quite good, even.
He mixed the powder for Ratchet and left the food on the desk with his clothes, before slipping out again.
Qwark nav linked with his ship, and was happy to note that it was safe to land on the roof of the PDC. He waded his way through the crowd again, eventually finding the stairwell to the roof. His ship was docked happily on the landing pad, the sun was shining… and the entire valley was a wet red slog of mud and water. The sky completely cloudless, Qwark looked out, down to the mesa below, and even some of the lower reaches of Kyzil plateau were… gone. Qwark spied Ratchet's garage halfway up the plateau, intact and visibly unharmed (although that said nothing of whether or not there were holes in the roof from that range) but everything further down had been swept clean away. Millions of bolts of damage, easily, if not billions when counting foregone economic loss.
Qwark slapped himself and drew a breath. He could leave; this wasn't his home, these weren't his people.
He bit his lower lip and opened the ship hatch, pulling out a navy colored tarp and tossing it up over the backs of the pilot's and copilot's chairs behind him as a makeshift backdrop, patched in a commlink and steeled himself.
"People of Solana, Bogon, and Polaris.
Last night, at around twenty… twenty… let's just say twenty hundred hours and leave it at that- a massive flood wiped out Asteroid City, and almost the entire Kyzil Plateau on planet Veldin. As far as we know, there are no casualties; evacuations occurred in time. However, the damage… my Presidential reporting says the entire area is under at least ten to twenty cubits of water, and the ground has turned to quicksand. Thousands, if not millions of people in the city and surrounding areas have lost their homes, businesses, and possessions. These people need food, boats, clothing, basic supplies, and most importantly- bolts. I will be putting my chief international affairs advisor in charge of coordinating donations, and I ask, if you even have a bolt to spare, there are people who could use your help. Polaris President Qwark, out."
Qwark shut the transition, and not a moment later, received a call from Talwyn, head of the Polaris Defense Force.
"Qwark, how do you even know about the damage out on Veldin? We hadn't even sent you your morning review- notthatyoureadthemanyway…"
"I'm here."
"You're…?"
"Ratchet asked for my help. I went as a publicity stunt, but it was already pouring hard when I got here. No camera equipment until this morning, and… I don't know. It just seemed… wrong now, somehow, to use this to my benefit. Tell no-one I'm actually here unless they need to know. My ship is on the roof of the Kyzil PDC. I'm going to tether my ship's HoloNet access for the PDC, since theirs is down. Have the telecoms bill me later."
Talwyn closed her eyes and sighed.
"Okay, who kidnapped Qwark?"
"There's hundreds of children with emergency blankets sleeping on the floor of what's supposed to be a prison facility, Talwyn."
"I… I get it. We'll start organizing a bolt relief."
Talwyn shut comms, and Qwark started up his ship, gunning for Ratchet's garage.
He touched down, getting to see Ratchet's old home for the first time… well, ever. The garage looked sound, and was large enough for a ship to dock, or a place to stock supplies, and was right above the largest mess below. Noting the garage had been locked and the shutters down, he'd offer to take Ratchet there when Ratchet woke up to grab his own belongings (at the very least, some shoes, and hopefully some shampoo for both their hair)… and start taking restoration strategy.
Because, as Qwark looked down at the damage… they'd need all the brains they could muster.
X
Ratchet was startled awake in the middle of the night by thunder and coughing, and of the two, the latter is definitely louder and shakes the bunk frame. Qwark is still in the lower bunk, coughing in his sleep – how can he sleep through that? Dazed, Ratchet climbed down, fumbled in the dark for the other canister of cough suppressant (the gross one, unfortunately), and twists it into Qwark's O2 mask. "Sorry," he mumbled as he fits the mask over Qwark's face, and when he climbs back up he's asleep again before his head hits the pallet.
His ears twitched as he heard Qwark leaving the detention cell in the morning, and he stretched and yawned. Then he grumbled under his breath. At least he's well-rested now and the cough is gone, but he feels itchy and disgusting. That shower last night didn't really do him any favors other than probably killing all the parasites he picked up from the floodwaters and mud. So he climbed out of the bunk, locks himself in the guard office, and strips down to take a very overdue real bath. Halfway through the bath, he heard Qwark return, but by the time he leaves the office, clean, dressed, and knowing full well he'll probably suffer through a hairball tomorrow, the President is off again. By now, he's probably hitching a ride back to Polaris and embellishing his tale about the quicksand with a War Grok or two.
'Hey, be fair', a voice in the back of his head chides him. He saved a lot of people last night. He's doing a lot of good. Oh hey, and he left some breakfast.
Ratchet hurried through breakfast, threw back the powdered vitamins, and got back into his own clothes – his boots are gone, but he didn't love those boots, so whatever. Before leaving the detention wing, he tried to make a call or two – Clank and Talwyn, no doubt, have heard about the flooding and he doesn't want them to worry about him. But his comm link can't find a signal. Looks like the storm knocked out the PDC's HoloNet connection. That's going to complicate relief efforts, for sure.
It's a long time before he joins Qwark on the roof. As soon as he enters the main hall, a Defense Officer picks him out of the crowd and asks for help. There are a few speedboats in reserve that can be used to get the officers to Rorik, Geebo, and Asterioid City, or to pick up stragglers. But they can't get them started, because the remote transponder that unlocks their ignition systems has taken water damage. It takes a lot of poking around in one of the boats' engines, but finally Ratchet manages to hotwire them, and boats launch from the PDC within an hour.
Then he volunteered for a much more delicate task. Stragglers were arriving from the other settlements up the plateau, and the medical volunteers had to decontaminate them before allowing them to join the other refugees. This, unfortunately, involves needles, and the children in the survivor group are in a panic. Ratchet knows they need a distraction, and does like storytelling, and the children are so enthralled with his wild tale about how Clank once single-handedly defeated the Thousand Snarling Smeerps of Smeerpy Gulch with a flyswatter, that none of them even notice the injection that rids them of any harmful parasites.
He's already tired when he marches up to the roof to take his first look at the damage. He's been talking to his fellow refugees, and of course they all said it was bad out there, but that didn't prepare him for the sight. His knees go slack and he just stares in dumbstruck shock. Kyzil is mostly gone – only the houses built high up on the rocks are left, and those look pretty battered. He can't even see Rorik at all, and two spires are missing from the distant, familiar skyline of Asteroid City. The plateau is a lake, now.
To his knowledge, there's never been a flood this bad in the F-sector.
Ratchet gritted his teeth and bashed his wrench against the metal rooftop, suddenly furious that he couldn't get the barricade up fast enough. But the anger and self-blame pass quickly, because this is beyond any barricade that he and the volunteers could have put up. Even if they'd finished it, it would have been washed away. It's a waste of time to think over what could and couldn't have been done, anyway. All that matters is what needs to be done now.
He's just about to head back downstairs when he realizes whose ship is docked on the other end of the roof, and who's just climbing out of it.
"Hey." He composes himself and crosses the roof to meet Qwark. "Are you going back to Polaris?"
"No." Qwark patted his cherry-red ship and grinned. "I'm staying behind. But until the floodwaters drain out of the basin, we're all kind of in a holding pattern, yeah? We can't rebuild yet… But, hey. Hop in. I'm taking you on a little ride."
Qwark hopped into the pilot's seat, patting the copilot's for Ratchet, and as soon as the airlock pressurized, Qwark shot off to space, rounding quickly to Kerwan. Ratchet doesn't say much on the trip to Kerwan, because, after all that's happened, there's really not much to be said – unless it has to do with rebuilding.
Quark landed not at either of their old apartment complexes (Ratchet's in the tech district or Qwark's in theater) or the PDC, but a ship park, flagging a hover taxi for travel within the city itself.
"Galactic Cross food bank," he stated, and the platform shot off to the west district.
Ratchet, puzzled, just stood in the taxi with Qwark until they arrived. Qwark ordered the automated vehicle to wait while a few attendants came to meet them with crates. And more crates. And more.
"Dinner for tonight," Quark explained with a groan, as he moved the crates onto the platform with Ratchet. "The food in the center isn't any good for morale in the long run. I… I pulled a few strings. We've got Kyzil spiced barbecued frog and fired tubers for nine thousand. More medicines should be arriving from Novalis in a few hours, vitamins from Markazia… and…"
One of the attendants tossed a bottle at Ratchet, who's more pleased about the shampoo than he lets on, when he catches the bottle with a bewildered stare.
"Cazar shampoo. We both need it. Come on. We have to bring this back to Kyzil before it gets cold. And, uh, I can pop you back to your garage if you need anything else?" Qwark shrugged his shoulders as the taxi shuddered back to life heading towards their ship.
"Hey. If we're going to be refugees… We might as well try to keep some class, right? I'll see about getting the kids some ice cream too."
Ratchet still doesn't say much until they're back in the ship – there's a lot to say and he doesn't know where to start. It goes without saying that this is going to make the survivors back on Veldin a lot more comfortable. Qwark is putting on a really unexpected show of support. And it's not just unexpected because he's – well, Qwark, but because this would be a lot coming from any Galactic President. Encouraging donations would be one thing, but actually making them?
Ratchet buckles up, then fidgets. "Qwark, you really don't have to stay." He's not trying to discourage him…just pointing it out.
"No, I don't have to stay. This isn't my home, at least not now. I don't know these people."
Qwark snorted, and reached behind him in the ship for the cargo hatch as they landed, a bit too angrily.
"You know Ace Hardlight?"
Of course Ratchet nodded at this, but Qwakr had no idea that Ace and he had met on a more personal level.
"Yeah, when I was a kid, and my parents had died, Ace came to my orphanage. Made a huge show of it. Stayed the night when there was a tornado. We were all underground; but when the storm passed, Ace just laughed, called his ship, and left us. News went wild about him being in the area, and donations poured in to fix the pace up, but there was one thing that stuck with me.
Ace was an asshole."
Qwark laughed, and picked up half of the crates with an easy swoop.
"You going to just stand there, or you going to help me move this stuff inside, cadet?"
X
Qwark stretched out on his bunk, satisfied after the meal. He'd never actually had Veldin style cuisine before, and cried throughout dinner from the heat. Ratchet must have an iron stomach, because for the first time since ever, he outpaced Qwark at dinner two-to-one on the frog legs. The Veldinites, especially the children, watched and laughed as the oversized Kerwan/Florana native tried to inhale his dinner, made worse when Ratchet smugly told him that the barbecue the food bank had made had been on the mild side, a statement agreed upon by the sea of small lizards watching Quark eat their planet's food for the first time.
Qwark merely sputtered and swore that Veldinites had to be able to breathe fire after eating like that regularly. Ratchet shrugged, whistling innocently, before twiddling a bottle of hot sauce, pouring the entire contents on the rest of his meal, and finished like normal with a completely straight face (although one completely covered in sauce).
Ratchet looked like he'd eaten an entire raw bugbear, or fought off a War Grok with only his teeth. The kids laughed harder, and ate their own food, giggling, and turning to look at Ratchet and Qwark for the rest of the night.
After the pair had finished, and the first wave of relief supplies came in, Qwark looked up at Ratchet on the bunk above him, both still deciding whether to turn in early for the night.
"It should be safe enough now to do an aerial sweep. And… eh… seeing your night vision's good- it is, right?- will you give me a hand checking for stragglers in the water… or… errr… casualties?"
A lump formed in Qwark's throat. No dead had yet been found or confirmed, but there were still several thousand unaccounted for. A trickle of those who'd left on private ships and finally able to hail a shelter were slowly lowering the MIA numbers by the hour, but…
"We should also check out your garage. It looked still intact, has a landing pad, and is probably the best place to start organizing volunteers and supplies as the water drains. I can help you clean it out if it did flood inside… I mean, what am I good for, other than lifting things? Maybe breaking them. But, really."
"Well, you're good at keeping morale up, too."
Ratchet can't say that with even a little bit of irony. It's too true. Qwark may be a narcissist and a chicken and a jackass, but people love him, and people are probably always going to love him.
"I mean, hey, think about it – those kids got meet Captain Qwark! And watch him eat spicy barbecue. At least they could eat it without crying." Ratchet can't hold back one last smile at the President's expense. "You shouldn't underestimate…you know, how much easier it'll be for them to look back on this because of that."
In a small way, it even helped him. It took him, just for a few seconds, back to a simpler time, when Veldin was all he knew, and when Qwark was still a hero. Just for a few seconds, he felt like he was home again.
He hung on to that fleeting feeling as grabbed an O2 mask, and ordered a thermal scanner from one of the armory computers. He's going to need that strength while they search for survivors. And casualties.
"Night vision's okay, but my hearing is better." The thermal scanner materialized on the console and he took it. "Try to fly low."
x
Qwark pulled his own O2 mask from storage, sighing.
"My skiff's not really meant for altitude flying. Not that kind of precision. You… don't have Aphelion nearby do you? Can you radio her down? If not, we're going to have to do it the old fashioned way; take out a pontoon and go for a swim with searchlights."
Qwark shrugged. "Been a while since I've had an adventure. Up to you, really."