"Captain, are you sure this guy we''re meeting is trustworthy?" Harpy asked, weary of the motives of their old contact who had been rather shady in the past.


    "Yeah, he''s fine. From what I hear he''s in desperate need of work these days, and doesn''t have many clients. He can''t afford to back stab anyone, or else he''ll go broke." Owl looked around for their meetup spot, but all he could see were several dingy shops and shady people walking around the main hub of the space station. This station was a waypoint for travelers, and had several docking bays, market stalls, shops, and inns.


    "The fact that he''s desperate is why I don''t trust him. Desperate people tend to make stupid decisions."


    "We''ll then it''s a good thing he ain''t regular people."


    As they continued walking through the dimly lit corridor of the space station, Owl spotted a door that had a mongoose standing on its hind legs in the center, and walked towards it. "This is it. Welcome to the Standing Mongoose!"


    Owl held his hands out toward the door, politely gesturing for Harpy to go in first. Harpy yanked the door open and walked through, only to find disastrous pile of junk lying before her.


    The "Standing Mongoose" as the owner called it, was a repair shop for technological odds and ends. The strangest and most random things could be found on the shelves. For instance, one of the items was a small toaster from the 20th century, there was an old record player, a small MP3 player from the early 21st century, a quantum battery the size of a baseball that had enough power to run an entire freighter class starship, small starship models, and even retro game consoles from many previous centuries.


    Behind the counter at the back of the shop stood a blue Kelafi with pure black eyes. The Kelafi were essentially squid people that looked kind of like the head of a squid was planted on top of a human torso. The Kelafi''s entire body was usually a single color, usually red, blue, or purple. They also had suction cups on their limbs, and six small tentacles protruding from right beneath their noses like a long mustache. These tentacles covered their beaks, and could be used like extra hands.


    "Hey Memphis Blues!" Owl said, hoping the Kelafi mechanic would take notice of him. "We''re ready for you to work your magic."


    "How many times are you going to use that ridiculous nickname? I’m not one of your 1950''s rock songs." A strange chorus of voices piped into everybody''s heads as the kelafi responded to Owl''s snide nickname that he always referred to him by.


    The kelafi were a peculiar race to humans because of their physiology and culture. They resembled earth squid, so they could communicate their emotions by changing their skin color to various others based on their mood. They were often named after a combination of the skin color and the emotional expression they exhibited most often, but this was only for the sake of other species. The kelafi were incapable of speech, but could communicate telepathically.


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    This left their species with no written language, no words, and no alphabet. In order to communicate with other species, they had to learn the language and listen to others speak the words so they could learn how to think in that language. However, since they don''t actually have a voice of their own when they telepathically communicate in an alien language it tends to sound like an amalgamation of different voices dependent on who they heard the words or phrases they''re using from.


    Owl was the only one who laughed at his own joke. "It’s from before the fifties, and it just fits you so well. Your kind don''t have facial expressions, and the voices I hear in my head whenever you speak to me always sound so melancholic."


    "If I were miserable my skin would be gray now wouldn''t it? Anyways, hello again everyone. The rest of you can call me Tranquil Blue, unlike your ungrateful Captain Starforged here."


    "Oh, come on Blues! You know you love it when I poke fun at you.” Owl, whose real name was Jack Starforged, loved to see if he could get a hint of laughter out of Tranquil Blue. However, it always failed. It was said the kelafi couldn’t laugh, but Owl was determined to prove that theory wrong.


    Tranquil Blue took the briefcase from Harpy and began tinkering with it all while continuing to exchange quips with Owl. "All of your attempts to make me laugh might as well fall on deaf ears."


    "Don''t worry Blues. I''ll crack your case one of these days, and you''ll never be the same again after you''ve enjoyed a good laugh. You''ll go from Tranquil Blue to Jolly Yellow, or something like that."


    "Yeah whatever.” Tranquil Blue decided to ignore Owl''s so-called plans for him while he finished his work. "The trackers have been deactivated. You should be good to go now, so where are my credits?"


    During their entire conversation, Tranquil Blue had been tinkering with whatever was in the briefcase. He didn''t need to take it out to mess with it, so nobody else had placed their eyes on it.


    Once he said he was done he and Owl looked at their wrist watches and Owl sent him the agreed-upon payment for the job. Harpy picked up the case afterwards, and the crew filed out the door, but before Owl left he turned around to talk to Tranquil Blue one last time.


    "Hey by the way…” Owl paused for a moment to let the tension build up. "You got something growing on your face Blue. You might want to get that looked at."


    Tranquil Blue saw Owl raise his finger to point at his tentacles, and the only response he could think to give him was, "Shut it you idiot."


    Owl turned around and walked out of the shop. He knew he was being an especially sarcastic jerk to Tranquil Blue, but he had a good reason to. He suspected for a long time that Tranquil Blue was going to betray them, and he needed him to be riled up so he would make a mistake without thinking about it.


    Luckily for Owl, Tranquil Blue fell for it, and sent a com signal out without checking his shop for any bugs first. While Owl was exchanging quips with Tranquil Blue, Blackbird was busy planting a bug underneath the toaster on one of the shelves, so they would have recorded evidence of everything that happened next.


    Tranquil Blue activated his wristwatch and a projection of another kelafi appeared in front of him. "Raging Crimson, they''re on their way."


    Suddenly Tranquil Blue''s skin started slowly turning a dark red color, a symbol of the repressed malice he felt toward Owl, whom he had already planned on betraying before the job even began.