(no subject)
This a plot bunny I've come up with that never made it past the planning stages. I've cleaned it up a little, but I'm never going to get around to fleshing it out into an actual fic, so. *hands*
It started as an impulse buy when I saw this little LEGO set, and then it mutated into this whole...thing. Set in a vaguely Firefly-esque universe. And then I realized, that, hey, no. Not so much with the Firefly as more with the completely random science fiction universe. And robots. (I admit to being deeply, deeply fascinated with AMEE the horribly misunderstood robot from the movie Red Planet. She just wanted hugs, okay? Things like that get lost in translation all the time. Really.)
Bob grows up on a colony world, and when he hits eighteen joins the military for a four year stint.
He enlists thinking it's a way off his home-world and some kind of future, but that's before war breaks out and he finds himself in way over his head.
They promise him money and a chance for a better life, education, maybe pilot training or something that will get him somewhere, and instead what he gets is a bloody bitch of a war and nightmares he can't shake.
Bob is injured when his squad takes part in an an engagement on a planet he never learned the name of and spends the last few months of his enlistment recuperating in the hospital.
When he gets out the war is winding down, and even though he knows his parents want him to come home where they can reassure themselves he's not dead, there's no way he can go back. He's not the same person he was when he left, and there's no room for someone as fucked up as he is there anymore. He probably should have listened when his father told him he was making a mistake, but it's too late for that now.
He's trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life, and decides maybe there's something waiting for him in the core worlds and hops a transport. He can't afford a ticket with a major space-line company, but there are smaller ships that take the older, less direct space routes. It means more time spent trapped on a ship and frequent stops on planets to refuel and take on provisions, but he's not really in a hurry to get anywhere.
Imagine his surprise when they stop on some godforsaken ball of dirt and rock and Bob finds himself breaking up a bar fight between a fellow passenger and some tiny pit bull of a local.
"More like space rat," the local cop tells him as Bob fills out a report down at the station. He's watching Bob with a speculative look on his face. "You're not half-bad in a fight."
Bob grunts, knowing better than to volunteer anything. He knows that look, it's the kind that had him signing away four years of his life and what he's beginning to suspect was his sanity.
"We could use someone like you," the cop says, a little wistfully.
Bob's careful not to make eye contact as he adds his signature to the report. He has enough problems of his own to last a lifetime.
The cop keeps on him, though, telling Bob that ever since they discovered the trick to hyper-space travel the only ships coming through have been small, independents like the transport Bob's traveling on or smugglers. The major companies, space-liners and cargo transports take shorter, more direct routes that cut down on fuel and provision costs, not to mention shaving off weeks or months in travel time.
"Oh, we get pirates too," the cop, Brian, says, a sour twist to his mouth. "We lost half a year's supplies to those bastards the last time they came through."
Bob's hand twitches at that, at the implication that Brian and anyone else crazy enough to stay on the dried out husk of a planet have to deal with pirates on a regular basis. Like it's normal, expected.
Bob doesn't have a reason to stay, but he doesn't have a reason to be anywhere else either. He will never be able to understand why he isn't on the transport when it leaves a few days later.
Brian talks him into signing on as an official police officer after Bob breaks up a few more bar fights, telling him he might as well get paid to do it if he insists on getting involved.
A few weeks in and Brian takes Bob down to what he thought was a storage locker in the basement of the police building and turns out to be something completely unexpected.
"She's an older model," Brian says, as if Bob wouldn't know that to look at her.
"A DX-E, right?" Bob asks, walking around her to get a better look. He remembers seeing them on his home world as a kid, accompanying the police patrols. They'd been state of the art at the time, but now most of them have been decommissioned, scrapped.
Brian nods, and the K-9 unit turns its head to study Bob. By the looks of things she's definitely seen better days, white paint chipped away in places, and Bob thinks he can actually see signs of rust, but somehow, she's still functional.
"Who was her last handler?"
"Pelissier." Brian says.
Bob looks up at that to find Brian looking steadily back.
"My superiors haven't seen fit to send a replacement," Brian says, jaw clenching. "They think it would be a waste of training and resources."
There's no mistaking the bitterness in his voice, or the cause. Bob had been fifteen when the powers that be had decided no one gave a damn about a planet that had nothing to offer the core worlds, colonization movement or not.
"And you think I'm the best guy for the job?" Bob doesn't bother to hide the disbelief in his voice. Brian's lost men to the pirates, but he has other officers who could take up the job as the handler to a K-9 unit.
Brian shrugs, eyes on the DX-E as it paws the floor restlessly. "Why the hell not?" he asks. "You have anything better to do with your time?"
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================
And then, you know, shenanigans! *jazz hands*
Bob ~bonds with his robot dog partner, meets Gerard and Mikey, the weirdos who operate the salvage yard at the edge of town, and crazy genius Ray who is some kind of genius who's been keeping DX-E operational even though, technically, she should have been scrapped years and years ago.
He already knows Frank, what with Frank being one-half of the bar fight be helped break up his first day on the planet, and...I don't really know. I just had this very strong desire to see war-weary Bob settling on some dusty little planet as a space cop with his robot partner. Naturally, Bob makes friends with the locals (who are clearly all batshit insane).
Possibly there are smuggler related shenanigans, and pirates, and Bob kicking ass with DX-E and Brian and the crazy locals, and then romantic sunsets with crazy Ray and after a while Bob realizes that, hey, he's finally found himself a place he can call home.
P.S. There was a moment, a very, very tiny moment wherein I contemplated the possibility of werewolves being thrown in here somewhere because, well. Space werewolves, how awesome would that be?, but that's an entirely different story for another time. Probably. :D?
It started as an impulse buy when I saw this little LEGO set, and then it mutated into this whole...thing. Set in a vaguely Firefly-esque universe. And then I realized, that, hey, no. Not so much with the Firefly as more with the completely random science fiction universe. And robots. (I admit to being deeply, deeply fascinated with AMEE the horribly misunderstood robot from the movie Red Planet. She just wanted hugs, okay? Things like that get lost in translation all the time. Really.)
Bob grows up on a colony world, and when he hits eighteen joins the military for a four year stint.
He enlists thinking it's a way off his home-world and some kind of future, but that's before war breaks out and he finds himself in way over his head.
They promise him money and a chance for a better life, education, maybe pilot training or something that will get him somewhere, and instead what he gets is a bloody bitch of a war and nightmares he can't shake.
Bob is injured when his squad takes part in an an engagement on a planet he never learned the name of and spends the last few months of his enlistment recuperating in the hospital.
When he gets out the war is winding down, and even though he knows his parents want him to come home where they can reassure themselves he's not dead, there's no way he can go back. He's not the same person he was when he left, and there's no room for someone as fucked up as he is there anymore. He probably should have listened when his father told him he was making a mistake, but it's too late for that now.
He's trying to figure out what he's going to do with his life, and decides maybe there's something waiting for him in the core worlds and hops a transport. He can't afford a ticket with a major space-line company, but there are smaller ships that take the older, less direct space routes. It means more time spent trapped on a ship and frequent stops on planets to refuel and take on provisions, but he's not really in a hurry to get anywhere.
Imagine his surprise when they stop on some godforsaken ball of dirt and rock and Bob finds himself breaking up a bar fight between a fellow passenger and some tiny pit bull of a local.
"More like space rat," the local cop tells him as Bob fills out a report down at the station. He's watching Bob with a speculative look on his face. "You're not half-bad in a fight."
Bob grunts, knowing better than to volunteer anything. He knows that look, it's the kind that had him signing away four years of his life and what he's beginning to suspect was his sanity.
"We could use someone like you," the cop says, a little wistfully.
Bob's careful not to make eye contact as he adds his signature to the report. He has enough problems of his own to last a lifetime.
The cop keeps on him, though, telling Bob that ever since they discovered the trick to hyper-space travel the only ships coming through have been small, independents like the transport Bob's traveling on or smugglers. The major companies, space-liners and cargo transports take shorter, more direct routes that cut down on fuel and provision costs, not to mention shaving off weeks or months in travel time.
"Oh, we get pirates too," the cop, Brian, says, a sour twist to his mouth. "We lost half a year's supplies to those bastards the last time they came through."
Bob's hand twitches at that, at the implication that Brian and anyone else crazy enough to stay on the dried out husk of a planet have to deal with pirates on a regular basis. Like it's normal, expected.
Bob doesn't have a reason to stay, but he doesn't have a reason to be anywhere else either. He will never be able to understand why he isn't on the transport when it leaves a few days later.
Brian talks him into signing on as an official police officer after Bob breaks up a few more bar fights, telling him he might as well get paid to do it if he insists on getting involved.
A few weeks in and Brian takes Bob down to what he thought was a storage locker in the basement of the police building and turns out to be something completely unexpected.
"She's an older model," Brian says, as if Bob wouldn't know that to look at her.
"A DX-E, right?" Bob asks, walking around her to get a better look. He remembers seeing them on his home world as a kid, accompanying the police patrols. They'd been state of the art at the time, but now most of them have been decommissioned, scrapped.
Brian nods, and the K-9 unit turns its head to study Bob. By the looks of things she's definitely seen better days, white paint chipped away in places, and Bob thinks he can actually see signs of rust, but somehow, she's still functional.
"Who was her last handler?"
"Pelissier." Brian says.
Bob looks up at that to find Brian looking steadily back.
"My superiors haven't seen fit to send a replacement," Brian says, jaw clenching. "They think it would be a waste of training and resources."
There's no mistaking the bitterness in his voice, or the cause. Bob had been fifteen when the powers that be had decided no one gave a damn about a planet that had nothing to offer the core worlds, colonization movement or not.
"And you think I'm the best guy for the job?" Bob doesn't bother to hide the disbelief in his voice. Brian's lost men to the pirates, but he has other officers who could take up the job as the handler to a K-9 unit.
Brian shrugs, eyes on the DX-E as it paws the floor restlessly. "Why the hell not?" he asks. "You have anything better to do with your time?"
================
================
And then, you know, shenanigans! *jazz hands*
Bob ~bonds with his robot dog partner, meets Gerard and Mikey, the weirdos who operate the salvage yard at the edge of town, and crazy genius Ray who is some kind of genius who's been keeping DX-E operational even though, technically, she should have been scrapped years and years ago.
He already knows Frank, what with Frank being one-half of the bar fight be helped break up his first day on the planet, and...I don't really know. I just had this very strong desire to see war-weary Bob settling on some dusty little planet as a space cop with his robot partner. Naturally, Bob makes friends with the locals (who are clearly all batshit insane).
Possibly there are smuggler related shenanigans, and pirates, and Bob kicking ass with DX-E and Brian and the crazy locals, and then romantic sunsets with crazy Ray and after a while Bob realizes that, hey, he's finally found himself a place he can call home.
P.S. There was a moment, a very, very tiny moment wherein I contemplated the possibility of werewolves being thrown in here somewhere because, well. Space werewolves, how awesome would that be?, but that's an entirely different story for another time. Probably. :D?