[Rage at the Eclipse] - The First Phase [Applications now Open again!]

Chroma’s hair puffed up at full mast, an universal avian signal for full attention. She didn’t expect the table to be this popular.

“I am a...doctor, not a mechanic. I am familiar with drone operation,” she said to Wilnarr. “Civilian ones.” She paused. “I can shoot. It seems to be expected, yes?”

She turned to Lucy. “Secondhand drone. Third-rate hospital. Hardware problem, likely. I think.”

"Oh, medical tech!" said Wilnarr. "So sorry. Can't be too careful, what with the dangerous beasts the galaxy has to offer! It'll be good to have you with us!" He stuck out his hand for Chroma to shake as well.

Chroma stares suspiciously at the hand for a few seconds before slowly accepting the hand. The hand was gloved but it still felt unnaturally heavy, like a metal ingot wrapped in cloth.

"Hey guys, the eclipse is happening!"



And with that the bar started peeling towards the windows to gaze out at the stellar phenomenon.

Honestly it wasn't really all that special, the only thing unusual about it was there was not supposed to be an eclipse at all this year.

Chroma is a little curious but she was too busy being contemplative about her future over her watery beer. Plus, staring into the eclipse is very damaging to one's eyes and she was not quite sure if the bartender has any special protective eyewear considering you know, this is a bar.

She could see the significantly less impressive but just as interesting video recording later, she figured.

Lucy was shook vigorously by the hand shaking. Right, either completely mad, or that kind of eccentric that just drags people into it's wake because they're so self-assured, either way, hilariously wrong. She quickly took the opportunity to excavate herself from this. "Oh, I'm just going to, yes, that, eclipse." She said, getting up swiftly and rushing to the window.

Jones glanced out the window.

“Hrmph,” he said, stealing a drink from a distracted onlooker. “Weird.”

Lucy made her way over to one of the windows, she couldn't quite manage to elbow her way past the gawkers, but got a good if somewhat limited view o the sun being blocked out, past all the heads, and buildings on the toher side of the street, a good portion of it was blocked by the top of the window so much so she could only see around a third of the sun as it was blocked out.

It did however, free up some of her attention to notice the planet's sole moon... was actually also visible in the sky, as it was nearing evening. And it wasn't anywhere near the sun.

Huh.

"Aha! The eclipse!" said Wilnarr, his rambling seeming to finally catch up with reality. "So sorry, Chroma, I'll talk to you later when we go looking for our flight, yes? Same to you, Lucy!" he called, before heading over to the front door of the bar and heading out just enough to get a good look at the sky. Too many people in front of the windows already, after all.

Wilnarr got a spectacular view of the eclipse. It was probably not the best idea to look directly at it, what with the whole 'not-looking-directly-at-eclipse rule that is still thought in schools on all planets that need to worry about such things. Around him people up and down the street similarly went about their day, some occasionally stopping and looking up at the spectacular display.

It was while he was looking something shifted in his vision, he could swear there was a cloud of black... spots around the halo of the eclipse.

Wilnarr grumbled about space traffic getting in the way of the view. Idiot rubberneckers, people on the ground wanted to look at it too!

The black spots grew larger, and faster and... firey.

Two were heading right towards the bar's neck of the woods.

Shotgun Jones wasn't aware of any of this, and was sitting at the bar enjoying his drink while ominous shit happened.

Lucy's face slowly stopped scrimacing as she squinted at the eclipse, to just a blank expression with a straight thin line at her mouth. "Riiiiiiiight." She said slowly, backing away from the window. Her fingers flexed and twisted through the air at her sides with agitation. Yeah, probably nothing buuuut...She didn't want to die as one of those people who discounted something dangerous cause it was unlikely, plus, she had money and not much current responsibility, so. She looked around the room. She looked at Shotgun Jones.

Hmm. Pilot without a ship. That was a bummer buuuut again. "Hey, um, Mr Jones. You say you drive? Could I hire you a day then? That okay?"

Jones glanced in her direction.

"Sure! Why not?" he shrugged, standing up. "Rates depend on what we're flying and what we're doing while we're flying."

"Finding a ship would be. Difficult," Chroma called from her seat. She seemed unfazed by the rising murmurs from the crowd.

"Unless one of you already owns a ship, or has a means to transportation we can...borrow." Chrome glances back. "Indefinitely."

Lucy made her way surrepticiously back from the window just as the flaming balls of fire fell from the sky, landing throughout the city.

Despite evidently falling from somewhere near orbit, the explosions where more along the lines of muted 'thumps' in the distance than the devastating eruptions they ought to have been.

Two of such fireballs crashed into the street outside with enough force to tear craters into the Ferrocrete road, and to send several nearby bystanders flying to the ground.



They didn't explode however, they simply appeared to be uneven balls of metal wreckage. That was on fire.

Then they started shaking.

Jones laughed as he saw the metal balls crash down outside.

"Looks like a riot out there, kids, but we'd best be going another direction."

He calmly looked towards Zigrund.

"There a back door?" he asked, quietly.

The spacebear Zigrund simply gave a beary roar of acknowledgement, flung the dishcloth over his shoulder, hefted a shotgun from under the counter, emptied the cash register's contents into a black safebox, hefted it under one arm, and exited the door behind him.

Wilnarr flinched back as the fireballs slammed into the street, then looked again. He took a step closer, trying to get a good look at the flaming, shaking lumps of metal.

Then a thought suddenly occurred to him, and he went back into the bar. "Zigrund, alright to put my drinks on my tab-" he started, before spotting the barkeep exiting through the backdoor. "Hey! I- damn. Well, I'll just remind him next time I see him. Come on, crew, my car's out back in the parking lot! If that drone can't record, we can head back to mine and grab a camera."

"Right, kids, let's follow Zigrund," he said to Chrome and Lucy.

Jones pulled out his own shotgun and followed after the bear with the naturalist!

Chroma hustles after the three humans and the bear. Meteorite falls was as common as rain back in her home planet (her home planet sucks, to be honest) but it didn't take much brain cells to realize that those were no ordinary space rocks.

Well, weird company to be fleeing the scene with, but sure, better than making it on her own, maybe. Lucy ran after the spacebear. Hope it's truck was big. Eh, he was a big guy, probably had a big car. Anyway, she just kept an eye on the sky as they ran.

No sooner had Zigrund exited the back door and they had began booking it after him, than the metallic balls sprung to life, unfolding many articulated arms bristling with weapons, and began opening fire on everyone around them. One shot went over their heads and the lazer grazed a drinks cabinet.



Once outside they discovered Zigrund had stopped, the van he had been heading towards now a smoking ruin. Another robot emerging from inside where it had landed.

"HAHAH! TOGETHER ZIGRUND!" shouted Shotgun Jones as he raised Esther, opening fire on the Battlebot as he circled around to avoid hitting Zigrund.

And to provide overlapping fields of fire.

This was turning out to be an excellent day!