Friends and Nemeses

"Yeah, that's what I meant! Try and gulate all the dada." The Iakaru fires up the ship's computer. "Let's see if we can't find a list of upcoming races first."

"Me likes the swoops idea." Runt jumps up and down a little. "We take good care of them and make big moneys." Runt looks at Vo's latest empty glass, a growing concern for his friend's need to drink is new to him, but he thinks he might have an idea.

”Sounds like a plan. I’ll see about getting in touch with Mal and see what we can set up for meeting.” Tarko’talik adds from his chair.

Tarko gets out his comlink and opens up Mal’s channel.

“Hey Mal. Tarko’talik here. We were just looking over the racing schedules and wondered if you had any shipments you needed dropped of in those directions.”

"Hey, Mal! This is Buimo," the Iakaru says over the open channel. "You got anything ready to go on Dralt? We could always do a side trip."

Tarko sighs,”Thanks Mal. We’ll look you up when we’re next in system then. Feel free to give us a call if you need a shipment moved, we’ll see what we can do.”

He waits for Mal to sign off before shutting down on his end and turns to the rest of the crew.

“Well, looks like we need to pound the deck plates and see if we can find some work. Maybe see if we can find some other races too. I think after the last performance you guys had we could do with a bit more challenging, and profitable, race than we’d find out here.”

As the group is discussing what to do next a small squeaky voice can be heard coming from the boarding ramp. ”Excuse me. Is anybody here?”

Vo looks out at the boarding ramp of the ship to try and see who is there, "We're here, might as well come up," he calls out.

Coming up the ramp you see a Chadra-fan in grease covered coveralls. As he approaches he appears to be wringing an equally grease covered hat. ”My name is Tatti Nakno, and I was wondering if I could get a ride with you guys to Eriadu. I’m an inventor of sorts, and no one here is interested in testing out my most recent invention. Hopefully if I can get to another racing site someone might be interested.” He only glances at each person before staring back at the ship deck. Clearly having been turned down by other groups heading that direction. Almost as an after thought he adds with a pitiful look on his face. ”You wouldn’t possibly be interested in a ship upgrade would you?”

Buimo looks at the little Chadra-Fan, confused. "Well, we're not really a passenger service, but we were thinking about heading to Eriadu anyway. Maybe. I think. What's this about an upgrade?"

You catch a new look of excitement come across Tatti’s face as he excitedly starts to explain the upgrade. ”It’s the same principle as the maneuvering thrusters you can get for airspeeders just on a bigger scale! It’s still in the early stages though. I only really have the prototype built. But without reliable test data no one has been willing to try it out yet.” His excitement quickly turns to disappointment with his last sentence. His eyes shift back to the ship’s deck and he continues to wring his hat. ”I’m short on funds after building the prototype and that’s why I’ve been asking the racers if they were heading to Eriadu. I can help out around the ship if it’ll get me passage. I just really need to find a race team willing to test out the upgrade, and I can’t way out here.”

Tarko’talik perks up hearing about the new equipment. This smells like a business opportunity to him.

”So let me see if I am understanding things correctly Mr. Nakno. You’re looking for passage to the next race because you’re looking for someone to test this new prototype. However you’re short on credits having built the prototype. You’re looking to work your way there though.”

He strokes his chin in thought as he considers things,”What are your plans for after you manage to get the prototype tested?”

Tarko nods, having figured that was the case.

”Well, if a team were willing to test this prototype for you, would you consider giving some backing to them if they then helped promote your new design as well?”

"Me thinking this good idea. Maybe me can help Tatti with his prototype. We add to ship and make it go woosh. Runt makes hand gestures like the the ship making extremely tight turns as he vibrates with excitement like an off-balanced pod racer engine. "What my friends think? Can we keep him?"

Tatti puts his hat on his head finally and starts getting excited again. ”You guys would be willing to test my prototype?! I can’t really provide any backing, as I said earlier my credits are all tied up in the prototype. I’ll provide the prototype for free. I’ll even let you keep it after the initial test flight is over!”

"Sounds like a good deal to me!" Buimo beams. "We've got room."

Vo takes a drink from his bottle, "If these work like the maneuvering thrusters on smaller vehicles then this can give us an incredible leg up on other competitors of our same size. If it works out well then maybe we could even talk to Aziz about helping you put these on the market."

"Uh, this prototype will be legal to use while racing, right?" Buimo asks everyone and no one in particular.