Never a moment's rest from babysitting.
Transcript
Talita looks up at how tall the extended radiators are and panics.
Talita: –Actually, take them back down.
She gets a radio message from the temps.
Clayton: Boss, where are you? Dominic and Adam are roughhousing.
Adam: Narc!
She switches to the temp channel.
SFX: clk
Talita: Cut it out. I’ll be right there.
She switches the channel back to Bip.
SFX: clk
Talita: I have to go keep the temps from killing each other. Do you need anything else?
Bip: Oh, lots! More welding, electrical work, shield patching, fuel refills for fusion and RCS–
Talita: …Maybe tomorrow.
47 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 145”
Bravo
No comic for 3/27?
Jay Eaton
For some reason the scheduled post did not go up when I told it to. It’s up now.
Solidago
Wait, she’s doing this on work hours? That’s a great way to get caught, but then again.. I don’t know if suiting up after hours is so sneaky either.
JoB
I suppose that if she went out ALONE after work hours, she might be safe from the wrath of the bean counters (especially considering that she maintains her suit herself in the first place), but the czafety sar would then REALLY want to tear her a new one …
06
<333
Sen
Talita’s face in the bottom left panel. That is one tired Centaur supervisor. She is so close to seeing how far she can throw a temp worker.
Vinemaple
Me with my elderly parents. The struggle is real.
Darth Biomech
So, uh, ok, I think we saw all 4 walls of the pit at this point, and I don’t seem to understand… How did the Runaway _got_ there, and how are they planning to lift it back up on the tracks again?
It doesn’t seem that the pistons that hold it can extend much further, and if a crane was used, then it should’ve been a Mother Of All Cranes that would be visible on the establishing shots, I think. The entire pit itself could be a gigantic elevator, maybe, but it doesn’t seem like that either – the floor is dirt
JoB
The Runaway was lowered into the pit, complete *with* the adaptable launch loop slide it sits on, by a large-ish crane that travels on the port’s rail system, as part of the automated “night cycle” Talita coded to “clear the rails” as requested by Idrisah through Cheevwut, here:
https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-99/
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Considering the Runaway being 196 m in length, that crane’s in the order of 500 m tall. Yup, that’s a *Mother* alright. 😉
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Also, as Teod noted in the comments on page 140, the ship got rotated 90° later on, so the cranes that now sit in the pit likely are able to lift it, too.
·
The pit itself used to be the foundations of something that became obsolete and got removed as the original mining operations ceased, so it definitely does *not* double as an elevator. It’s not *just* “dirt” (regolith) but has been made solid somehow, pretty much like the plans for a base on our moon often involve “baking” or “cementing” or … regolith into the brunt of the material needed to build structures and, even more important, radiation shielding with.
arf
Dominic: Narc!?
Adam: BOO! Hisss…!
Clayton: Now that’s just childish, Adam, even by your standards.
Adam: …sssss….
Adam: … that’s… not me.
(I’m not sure whether the Board of Enquiry would pin the blame on Talita, or the idiots who hired these idiots!)
Bear-on-a-tricycle
With the radiators positioned like that, it makes the Runaway look like a dragonfly. 🙂
Vinemaple
Ominously absent from this page: Yao.
Guest
Yao is smoking a fat blunt somewhere
JoB
“… didya connect a *vape* to your suit’s pipeworks???”
“…”
“How do you even turn that on and off while wearing the suit, seeing that it’s sitting behind your back!?”
“… wisha cooood …”
Vinemaple
Yao was seen on the last page, noticing the Runaway’s radiators poking up above the foundation pit, and not saying anything, but your weed humor is cute.
Arcstone
“thoust dear interrupt a gentlemans knightly duel, knave? squealing to the lord of these lands? I say sir, have at thee!”
Comito
I see you, gnome! I haven’t forgotten about you!
gnome_artificer
I’m glad to be remembered
Ruby
Ma! They’re killing eachother again!!
Storm
Wow I would absolutely screw up which channel I was talking on, let’s hope Talita is better at keeping track than me….
JoB
It’s now my new headcanon that Bip has acquired full remote control of the two troublemakers’ suits, patched Adams one-word comment onto the radio waves to further incriminate him (note that Adam’s *not* touching any button to have it transmitted to the “temp channel”), and is *desperately* pondering how to get similar control over the *bodies* within the suits so as to minimize the interrupts of Talita working on the Runaway.
Guest
Talita, the permanently harrowed woman
JoB
Take the welding apparatus with you, Talita.
·
“Alright, you two, see this here? That’s what I weld stuff with, right out here in the near-vacuum, and if I hear of your stupidolympics happening again, I’m going to use it to weld your suits’ backbacks to an I-beam so that you’ll stay 5m apart at all times, and *don’t* you think you can complain to me about the beam’s weight or whatever!”
A Box Of Fox
“Stupidolympics” is an excellent word
JoB
s/backbacks/back*p*acks/
Phasma Felis
bagpags
Enai
bagbags
Vinemaple
I am absolutely hoping that today’s panel shows Talita charging back to the temps on all sixes, and maybe some barking, which of course won’t get picked up on the radios of felt by the humans in the thin atmosphere.
JoB
“Parry *this!*”
[stampedes towards fencertemps, holding a loader’s dozer blade in front of self for armor]
evileeyore
I’ve been wondering for awhile if Clayton has figured out that Talita has some sort of off the books side thing going on and is covering for her. And what excuses Talita is using for for leaving the temps on their own to work unsupervised.
Enai
They’re temps, not grade schoolers. They ought to know to not recklessly endanger themselves.
I know that’s too much to ask from Adam specifically, and Dominic seems to be so sopping wet they will acquiesce to any stupid idea that anyone suggests with enough vehemence, but still. They are ostensibly adults and “marking metal chunks” is not the sort of work that actually needs much supervision. I would feel insulted if I had such a job and the boss felt the need to stand next to me to keep me on task.
Arcstone
Well then better prove them right by having an honorable crowbar duel in an eva suit that you’ll die in if it’s punctured.
JoB
Crowbars!? How old-fashioned! They live in an age of vehicles allowing full 3D mobility, and surely wouldn’t want to duel reduced to a surface crawler!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQ8T5XTNmoc&t=35s
evileeyore
If you acted like Adam and Dom, you’d need and deserve constant supervision.
I’ve worked construction, when we got newbs, even well experienced workers who were just new to our crew, they always had a supervisor, usually another crew member mentor they’d shadow for several weeks/months until they proved to the mentor //and// the super that they understood our methods (how we did things) and were trustworthy. Also, we always had a supervisor/foreman of some type on the job site overseeing things. Occasionally they’d need to leave (sometimes even frequently) but someone was always left in charge (which admittedly is probably what Clayton is doing, acting as temporary shift supervisor while Talita does her sidework).
On any regular site*, Adam and Dom would have been fired already.
* By which I mean one where a) it’s not a several week† trip to/from and b) the site supervisor isn’t up to shenanigans and has the confidence to the lead properly. Lastly a site that takes workplace safety seriously (not saying Ixiom and Talits don’t take workplace safety seriously, just saying. I have been on crews with companies that did not take safety seriously and in the begining I was the goof-off that Adam is (not the racist bigot) and it took seeing some shit to wise up and realize safety rules aren’t just “guidelines”).
† I’ve heard about how on some work crews where you don’t just “go home” at the end of the day (remote work sites in other states, other countries, oil rigs, etc) that sometimes those sites tolerate more shenanigans than your average worksite would tolerate because firing and replacing a worker is a more costly endeavor than a slightly unsafe level of shenanigans would be. And yeah, tight now my butt is puckered just remembering the stuff I’ve heard about some of those sites/crews nonsense, all because someone higher up was more concerned with keeping costs down than keeping the workers safe.
bitty
I think you’re right about Clayton being onto Talita..! And Yao too surely, right? But also, Clayton is probably acting as the supervisor/foreman position (aka responsible person in the relative room) *without* Talita asking it of him, which is really nice, seriously. He keeps calling her boss, which Talita has asked him to call her Talita, but I think what she isn’t grasping is that she is The Boss of these people and without her guidance… things can go wrong, quickly. Clayton wants to do his job and Talita wants… to not be a supervisor, from what it looks like, especially not to these people (not you clayton…. yao…. yall are chill). i get it but somethings bound to give (hopefully not a suit from a well placed jab from adam or phoebe…)
Vinemaple
“Clayton, keep an eye on them, okay? Tell me if they do anything unsafe. I need to, uh… go do a thing somewhere else.”
*shrugs* “Sure, boss, whatever you need”
Vinemaple
I was thinking about your comment this morning… Given his bio and general attitude, I expect Clayton would consider anything weird that he notices Talita doing to be Not My Problem and Above My Pay Grade (although I think you’re right about him being nominally in charge at the moment).
Hunter
I imagine Bip is going to keep trying to do what they can while Talita’s gone.
Vinemaple
Bip seems to be doing as much as they possibly can by themself, driving multiple salvage vehicles by RC simultaneously, now that they have resources and a hiding place and proper servers to run on.
Eux
NARC! lghsekjfsdfjkhg wow. i wouldnt assume those two are college age bros but they sure act like it.
Enai
The angry eyebrows in their visors crack me up.
Peter Jensen
The bottom of the transparent part looking like a grumpy frown completes this.
Enai
Yes, it does. Absolute perfection <3
Famout
I suspect the Runaway hasn’t gotten a repair job like this in some time, even excluding the damage. Must feel nice to Bip.
Claire
Up in a gantry, close-up work from a quality welder, plenty of terminals from which Bip can connect and partake in the repairs… This is some quality TLC.
claire
honorable combat.
Trees
Qapla’!