Sil was showing Swinn around his ship. It had a few rooms, namely a small bedroom, a bathroom, a living room/kitchen, a cockpit room, along with a few rooms that Sil didn't know what to do with so he just had them as general storage.
"So this is it, the place I've been living in for the past few years," Sil began, "It's nothing too special, but I have been needing some repairs in a few different places."
Swinn was holding a box of tools along with wearing his red technician uniform.
"What needs fixing?" Swinn asked, determined.
"A few lights, my engine, my replicator, and some other miscellaneous stuff."
"On it!" Swinn saluted before getting to work.
Sil took a seat and relaxed as he saw his friend almost giddy at the simple act of unscrewing a wall panel.
"I see, the lights are broken because the fuses blew out, I thankfully have some prepared because this is always a common issue with ships."
"How common?"
"Nine times outta ten, travelers think sparks flying around their ship is a normal occurance when they get hit," Swinn placed a nail in his mouth as he replaced the fuse, "Doesn't help that there's plenty of media that makes it seem like it's normal."
Once reconnecting old wires to new wires, he took out a hammer along with a small metal dohicky, wrapped it around the fuse, and nailed it to the wall to ensure the fuse doesn't move around in space.
"There! I'll need to check some other spots. I've noticed there's stuff that needs maintenance. When was the last time you took this thing to repairs?"
"Uh," Sil suddenly wasn't so sure of himself, "About… a hundred years ago?"
"Ha! Good one." Swinn didn't immediately fully register what his friend said, still too caught up in the repairing process.
"..."
"How long is a hundred years?"
"Ah, right, I need to convert it," Sil scratched the back of his head, as he was recalling the intergalactic time measurement unit system, and the calculations involved to convert earth time, which Sil was familiar with, to a time Swinn should be more familiar with, "About 245 Milolicrons."
Swinn jolted around and began grabbing at his hair, "TWO HUNDRED AND FOURTY FIVE MILOLICRONS!?!"
Sweat began to form on Sil's forehead, "Y-yeaaahhhh?"
"How old are you!?!"
"...699 in earth years, or 1712 and a half Milolicrons," Sil finally said. He really didn't like saying his actual age as oftentimes people would freak out over it, just like Swinn was doing now. He could only hope he was doing the calculations right and had the correct number.
"People can live that long?!" Swinn was tugging at his hair, genuinely surprised, "Surely you're just messing with me right?"
"I'm not!" Sil quickly said, "People of my species can learn qi to extend their life if they want to. We used to live for only a mere fraction of that time about 600— about 245 milolicrons ago."
Even though Sil had been traveling in space for quite a long time, it was actually only semi-recently in the years that a lot of alien races tried inventing a universal measurement of time since it was common for a species to invent a time system based after their own society. Because of this, Sil had attempted to learn the different measurements, but it wasn't like they came up super frequently in his life, and a few measurements fell out of style, while the ones remaining competed against one another. Sil just hoped he didn't get the formula mixed up and didn't use the hitho measurement instead of the intergalactic time measurement that he wanted.
"I— thats—" Swinn stared wide eyed at the other before thinking about it and placing a hand on his chin, stroking the longer tufts of fur there, "well— there's a few alien species that have gone to my shop a while back that could've lived for up to 300 milolicrons, and that one guy who's lived up to 430 milolicrons, but they were already pretty old looking… and there have been stories about higher beings that live for way past you have…"
"Higher beings?" Sil questioned, now thinking about if Swinn's home planet might have a celestial or if he knows about any celestials that Sil saw in his vision.
Swinn casually waved his hands and giggled, "I'm sure for someone as well versed as you would know that there's a few of them around some planets."
"I know that, but I'm more surprised that you know about them. Most planets I've come across aren't really aware of other alien's celestials if they aren't aware of their own."
Swinn walked over to a light switch before taking out another tool to remove its panel, "I just heard some things from the clients I get. Most people just don't pay attention to the mechanic," he chuckled then took out a mini flashlight to look inside the wiring, "I've worked this job for a pretty long time, and listening in is as close as I'm going to get to traveling space."
Swinn was fiddling some things around with his ship's wiring, looking quite invested in whatever the issue with the electricity was. Sil looked at his chat logs, they were still locked for another 2 hours, which annoyed him somewhat, so he decided to continue talking to Swinn.
"Hey, does your planet have any celestials?" Sil asked.
"Hmm… Nah, none that I know, but it's likely that celestials could just keep themselves hidden from their own people," Swinn chuckled.
Swinn then looked around the room, searching for something, "Where's your energy source? Or power generator. I want to check something."
Sil then led him to a different section of his ship, leading him to a lower deck down an elevator. His ship was meant to be top of the line, the newest technology that earth had to offer, or more specifically, Logan Green had to offer. Sil then pressed his finger against a pad, unlocking a sliding door to the generator room.
To be honest, Sil hadn't gone to this room in a long time as even though his ship was powered by beast crystals, he only really inserted beast crystals through a few chutes that were spread throughout the vessel. This was because Logan knew Sil wasn't the best with technology, and this was the easiest way for Sil to power his ship.
Looking around, they were in a metallic room with an advanced furnace in the center that went from the floor to the ceiling, casting a blue glow. A few glass tubes led into the furnace as this was how the beast crystals fed it. Around the walls of the furnace were several buttons, switches, and screens indicating power levels, temperature, and more.
Swinn breathed in the room as one does, and sneezed, rubbing his heart shaped nose, "This is… alarming. If it's this dusty, then I really need to check out the transformer."
"Transformer?" Sil asked, dumbfounded by what he meant.
"The machine that converts the high wattage to the low wattage—" Swinn then realized that he may be talking to a technology idiot, "The thing that changes big energy to low energy without exploding the wires."
"Ah," Sil replied, understanding.
Swinn then examined the place, looking for the transformer. Then as he found it, he investigated the numbers and bars on the screens. Sil just sat back on a stray chair as he watched Swinn work his magic. If Swinn was sabotaging his ship, then Sil probably wouldn't know it just by looking at him, but he had been around long enough where he could tell if someone had bad intentions.
After Swinn looked over the parts, namely the explosion vent, and grimaced over the condition of the parts, he returned back to Sil.
"Well… I certainly wouldn't have let the situation get as bad as it's gone," Swinn bit his lip in worry, "Don't worry, your ship will still function, but I'd personally recommend getting a transformer soon, preferably the Rubonic energy transformer. We might have one at my job, but you can get one of those from the Galicar planet, it's not too far from here. I'm honestly surprised your ship lasted as long as it has."
Swinn then took out his mechanic box, picking out a few tools, "You can go over to my job and check it out, it's near where I saw you last night—" Swinn then paused recalling that moment afterwards, then shook his head, "I'm going to be busy with this for a while, so you can do whatever in the meantime."
Sil nodded, and teleported out. The power plant room was getting a little stuffy, and the cool air of the planet was very refreshing compared to it. Teleporting to the place where Sil saw Swinn last night, he was reminded of the Lupanare zone. He wondered how the perfumes in that area worked, and wondered if he could send a bottle to Vicky and Logan as a gift. It seemed like something they might enjoy.
Looking and asking around, he managed to find the store Swinn worked at. It was a large rectangular building with yellow text in a foreign language on the front and several posters advertising unique deals. Next to the text was a logo of a mechanic at work.
As he entered, he saw a chiropteran with light brown fur, and large eyebags under her eyes. She was larger than Swinn, and looked to be halfway to falling asleep with how she held her head up with a hand lazily resting on her chin. When the door rang a bell, she stood upright and had a tired smile.
"Hello, welcome to Eroe's Gears, how can I help you today?"
"Do you have a Rubonic energy transformer?" Sil asked.
"Hmm, I'll have to check in the back." The chiropteran said before heading through a doorway behind the counter.
Sil looked around the place. There were plenty of machines, wires, orbs, and more on display, some even suspended in the air with chains and rope. He walked around, examining some of the tools. Sil didn't know what half of them did, much less how he would use them. The place was illuminated by an orange light that had visible specks of dust floating where the light source beamed.
"If only I could hire a mechanic…" Sil whispered, recalling Swinn. Unfortunately, he was already employed.
Over the years, Sil's ship had gotten damaged, and he did try his best to fix things how he could along with Logan sending him program files to help make up for the damages. There was also the fact that every hundred years, he would've gone back to get a new ship or his old one fixed, but this trip was the first one where he didn't need to come back to the human solar system so soon. Needless to say, Sil just wasn't an expert at repairs.
The blonde chiropteran came back with an apologetic look on her face.
"Sorry, we actually just ran out of them. I'd say wait until we got a new shipment sent in, but there's a shortage. Is there anything else I can do for you?"
"Ah, no worries," Sil shrugged, "here's a tip."
Sil then opened up a small portal that dropped an advanced tier crystal into his hand. He placed it on the counter before leaving.
The chiropteran couldn't believe what it was she got, her eyes and mouth were open wide just looking at the clearish crystal.
—
Sil returned to his ship, and spotted a very itchy looking Swinn scratching at his skin using his claw-like feet sitting in the center room of the ship. He was surprisingly flexible as he sat on the couch getting the harder to reach spots.
"What are you doing?" Sil wondered, slightly surprising Swinn.
"Your ship's dust is making me itchy—" Swinn then sneezed, interrupting himself, "You should really clean up more often."
"Well, I never had the need to since I haven't gotten sick since—"
Sil was about to give out a number but he genuinely did not know the last time he got sick.
Swinn gave Sil a look of horror and wonder, everything he heard from this man was just another gut punch.
"Anyways—" Sil changed the topic, "I wasn't able to get a Rubonic transformer. There was something apparently about a shortage?"
"Oh yeah! The shortage! I thought there'd still be at least one today, but I guess some guy bought a bunch after hearing about it," Swinn scratched at his ear, "There's a nearby planet that we get the transformers from— actually, where we get a lot of our parts from, but I heard there was some sort of conflict with the working conditions of the companies there."
Swinn shrugged, "I dunno, it's just something we gotta deal with."
Sil placed a hand on his chin as he thought about what to do next, "Hey, Swinn, I can trust you, right?"
Sil then took out a emperor tier crystal and showed it off to Swinn, "if you keep an eye on my ship while I'm out, then you can have this."
Swinn's eyes went WIDE, and his jaw dropped, "I—I—I—WHAT— DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH THAT'LL FEED ME?!"
Swinn then began tugging at his hair, "I wouldn't need to worry about food for like… three Milolicrons— No scratch that, FIVE milolicrons!"
The chiropteran then stood up, and saluted, "How long do you want me to keep watch over your ship?"
"Until I come back, it shouldn't take too long. Actually—" Sil then took out his soul weapon, flipped through a few pages then put it away, "My clone will tell you when I'll be coming back."
Sil then duplicated himself once, the two beings were nearly identical, and Swinn just kept looking at the two of them frantically.
"My clone here has the telepathy ability, so I'll be able to send a message if I can't use my communicator."
Sil then left Swinn alone with the clone. He went down a hallway, into a passageway that led to the docks. Inside, there were three smaller ships, fighter jets, and Sil just picked the one closest to him as he got into its cockpit. Flipping on an array of switches, pressing a few buttons, and more, the fighter jet levitated off the ground, and the ship's doors opened, allowing Sil to fly out.
Swinn meanwhile, didn't know how to act around the Sil clone. The clone was following Swinn around as he was examining different parts of the ship. Eventually, Swinn made it to the kitchen, the clone still following close behind.
"Hey, uh… what do I call you… Sil's clone? Brother?... twin?" Swinn asked, trying to make small talk as he was in the process of deciphering how the replicator worked.
The clone looked around before grabbing a fancy green kitchen towel, wrapping it around his head, "You can call me towel."
Swinn just gave Towel a look, before continuing to work on his job.