Chapter Five

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(Into theme song: Purple Sun, Cannons)

Whale Song

Characters

Stratis "Rocky" Crystallo Sedimeti Enomorph, Ph.D.
Rikard Hightower, captain of the C.E.V. Sherwood Forest
Theme song: Skating Away On the Thin Ice of the New Day, Jethro Tull
Rosalind "Rosie" Neisseria Linnaeus, Ph.D.
Sherwood, geist of the CEV Radiant Black
Theme song: Rainbow Fields (Upbeat Instrumental), Robbins Island Music Group

Previously On "Have Spaceship, Will Travel"

The gang hung out at Fred for a few weeks while the Radiant Black was refurbished and brought up to Fred's standards.

They stopped at a few former Cetacean Protectorate worlds. One, Polnapel, was entirely dead: the entire biosphere was poisoned by the Instrumentality during the Fall.

The crew arrived at another former Cetacean Protectorate world, Rockford (current star charts refer to it as the Rockford Naval Research Center "sponsored by Lastimar"). The crew was initially met by armed security, due to the recent incidents of sabotage against Lastimar facilities.

Coincidentally, Rockford was also the current assignment of Doctor Went's "human friend Chris". Doctor Went wants the captain (Rikard) to hire Chris as the doctor's nurse.

It turned out that Chris' name is actually Carl Yor. He is not a nurse, although he used to be a combat medic. He is a former mercenary who has decided that he no longer wants to be on the front line, which was why he was working as corporate security.

(Fun fact! "Carl" means "foot" in Doctor Went's native language -- a particularly vulgar word, in that culture. So Doctor Went calls Carl "Chris". Carl, meanwhile, has not told Doctor Went that "went" can also be a vulgar word. "Do you need to go? No, I already went.")