Cloak and Dagger

Zrain’s readings prove accurate. As the "dark" side of the asteroid comes into view, the unmistakable silhouette of a Mark II Falconer drone darts up from its hiding place, guns glowing in preparation.

The sous sees the chair, as well as Yoshi’s inhumanly smooth handling of it. His beak gapes for a moment, but then he shakes off any lingering sense of wonder and grabs a black smock from a nearby hook on the wall.

"Squawk! You’re fancy, eh?" he asks Yoshi, tossing him the smock. "Well, you’re running food now, Mr. Fancy; I got paella dying in the window and a waitstaff that moves like turtles on ice! Now get these two trays to table 31!""I’m above the host stand," Mellie answers, "too far to hear Sable, but I still haven’t found the third guard. They def haven’t entered the restaurant, unless they can even mask their heat signature. You want me to get in closer instead?

"The Fwioko Falconer drone, Mark II," Zrain recites, "the fully autonomous workhorse of the Colonial fleet. They’re fast, they’re hard, and they’re most effective at short range, with a wide-beam EMP cannon that will knock us out of the sky like a clay pidgeon, and a powerful tractor beam that will lock us down and drag us back to the station in shame. Which is bad."

Right on cue, the Falconer’s plasma-wake glows bright, and the dark craft blasts across the surface of the large asteroid towards Dirt, rapidly approaching close range.

Yoshi strolls up to a table of recently seated avians, two chicks and two old birds for the four bowls of steaming squid-and-eel paella. The grandpa stares away coldly, while the elderly matriarch glares at Yoshi with unveiled hostility.

"We, um… we haven’t ordered yet…," explains one of the teenaged birds, looking mortified by her elders’ behavior. "M-maybe some waters to start? And a nectar for him," she says, gesturing to the aloof gentleman across from her. "My grandmother will have a sparkling rice wine, the ‘59, if you have it. Thank you."

Across the restaurant, the sous slaps his forehead with one wing, shaking his head wearily.

Over at Sable’s table, the raven prince and his crow guard have been joined by a third: a plump; mottle-furred bat, well-dressed in deep purple brocade robes and a slouchy black cap.

"Ah, my Prince," greets the bat, bending low to kiss Sable’s feathers, "how I have looked forward to our meeting! I understand that you desire to take a look at our, er… catering menu, yes?"

"Yyyes.." answers Sable, slipping carefully into the code. "That’s right. My family is considering a foray into the, ah… banqueting game, as it were. I’m here to see how Mountain Bird can assist us in our preparations."

On Yoshi’s other side, an impatient hand waves at him from a table of three, now being rejoined by their fourth, the clown who had nearly tripped Yoshi with his heaping bus tub a minute earlier.

"But of course we can assist you!" cries the bat’o, "in fact, it would be our keenest pleasure! Truly, it is a wonder that our paths have never crossed before! Wherever have you been hiding, my friend?"

Yoshi detects a note of accusation in the bat’o’s performative doting. The unspoken message is, "why now? After so many years of infuriating neutrality? After so many years of fruitless struggle and paltry, hard-won victories?"

"It’s the guest-list," the guard interjects, "and some of the… rowdier, more unpredictable elements we may have to entertain. The House of Corvid is concerned about security, you see?"

"My bird is bold," says the Prince, giving the crow a firm but indirect warning, "but he is also correct. My family requires assurance, and perhaps insurance, that our interests will be protected in the event of say, a wedding crashed by over-excited revelers. There are so many religious festivals this time of year, you know? Such passion they inspire, and sometimes foolishness."

The bat sits back in his seat and frowns. "Oh, but of course," he continues, his friendly tone somewhat dampened by suspicion. "who could find fault with such a calm and level-headed concern? But then, that is the beauty of a banquet, isn’t it? With the really good ones, everyone is welcome."

The bat allows the silence to hang for a moment before continuing. "Why don’t I get you a couple menus to look over, eh? Perhaps a look at our delicious wares will ease your party-planning worries."

The prince checks in with his guard, and they exchange a quick nod together before returning one to the bat’o.

"Sure," says the Prince, "let’s see some menus."

"This is why we do our homework, people," Dirt says, continuing to spin while keeping a consistent distance between himself and the drone. "Steady the course. Jammers up," he says to Zrain, "And let's stay out of range of that cannon, shall we?"

He twists the joystick and lets out another spray of orange fire that corkscrews through space toward the drone.

"Sure, no sweat," says the bartender, a youngish raptor in a crisp vest and cuffed-up shirt-sleeves. The image of a feathered lance has been etched into the side of his beak, which, along with a cavalier lack of any sort of neck-tie, contrasts sharply with his otherwise clean-cut, professional appearance. "One question first though…"

He sets down the glass he had been polishing and leans down close to Yoshi with his elbows on the bar.

"Who the hell are you?"

A few seats away, Sable’s second guard tilts his head ever so slightly in the direction of Yoshi and the bartender. "No, nothing…" says Mellie, a note of worry in his usually casual voice. "No one else besides that one four-top has come in since we got here. I guess it could be one of them? Nothing like the two bruisers with Sable, though. Okay, I’m moving back. The bat’o just signaled to the hostess, and now she’s walking off to what looks like another closet. I’ll shadow her, maybe that’s where the ‘menus’ are."

The Falconer drone spins away from Dirt’s fire, escaping damage, but it was close. It continues to race towards the young pilots along the surface of the asteroid, and as it enters close range its guns glow a vibrant blue before discharging with a brilliant flash. An arc of crackling cerulean energy lances toward Dirt’s ship, but between his expert flying and Zrain’s uncanny real-time calibrations of the shielding system, the dangerous EMP gets nowhere near them.

"Come on, Ziawk, you got this," Zrain cries in encouragement. "One solid hit through the drone’s shields should take it out."

Dirt collides with the drone head on, feeling the shock roll through him. The drone spins away, intact but temporarily overloaded. It jerks and twists though space like a wounded insect, until suddenly it flips around to right itself. A faint shimmer ripples around the drone as its shields reactivate.

"Damn, you almost had it!" Zrain shouts, "but good work putting it on the defense!"

The computer trills an alert, drawing Zrain’s attention.

"Uh oh…" he says, "let’s finish this guy off quick, because we’re about to have company."

"No, I don’t remember you," says the bartender, looming over Yoshi. "In fact—"

"HEY!!" comes the shout from the direction of the kitchen. Yoshi turns to see the sous approach, looming over the both of them. "what do you think you are doing, eh? You gonna give my waiters a hard time while I’m short-staffed?!"

"But uncle, he—"

"But-uncle-he nothing! I just promoted him from dish, that’s why he look new to you, ‘cause you never spend time in the kitchen! Now, someday you gonna be a real sharp shiwak maybe, but today you pouring wine, okay? So pour!"

Yoshi is fairly certain he can see steam rising from between the bartender’s pale blue feathers. The sous chef had used the word "shiwak." It was an old avian word that meant "claw" or "nail" in general, but which, when used in reference to a bird, could mean either the hook of the beak, or one of the talons. Was the bartender a card-carrying junior terrorist?

"Yes, uncle," he growls. After he’s set up the waters, he takes the bulb of a giant heart-flower from a crate. Yoshi had never noticed before how similar they looked to the head and neck of a human. The bartender takes a knife, and with one smooth slice he opens the throat of the flower, spilling its flame-gold nectar into the chilled crystal glass beneath it.

"Make sure you don’t leave before tip-out," he whispers to Yoshi. "I’d hate to have to come find you."

Finally, he places upon the tray a champagne-flute, a dark cloth napkin, and an expensive looking bottle of wine.

"You know how to do this part, right? The woman it’s for insists on her wine being opened at the table, so she knows she’s not being cheated."

A few booths away, Yoshi sees the dove drop off a couple of menus at the prince’s table. The guard takes one, sliding the other to Sable. A moment later, their brows lift slightly in unison.

Under sustained fire from Dirt’s guns, the drone’s battered hull turns red from the heat, and then orange, and then straight to white before collapsing in on itself in a blaze of radiation.

"Yee-haw!!" shouts Zrain, as they soar past the explosion.

But the young pilots’ revelry is cut short, as a wave of crackling blue energy slams into the side of the craft, rocking them violently in their seats and also playing havoc with the ship’s systems. The lights in the cockpit go black for a second and then haywire the next, and Dirt thinks he can even hear the engine skip a beat before kicking back into gear. Feels like nearly falling back in your chair during class.

"Damn, looks like the second drone caught up!" Zrain cries. "good thing it wasn’t able to flank us!"

The snobbish bird at Yoshi’s table watches him present and pour the wine, tastes it, and is forced to conclude that he has done an acceptable job. She is able to muster a single cold huff of approval, but naturally, her waiter’s competence has utterly ruined her evening. Ah, well. Something was bound to.

"Bro, you know I’m getting hella snaps up in here," Mellie whispers proudly. Indeed, Yoshi can hear the gentle chi-chunk of his comrade’s special spy-camera. "I slipped into the closet where our girl took the menu’s from. Of course they’re all in avian, but someone should be able to make use of them. Hey, I’m gonna dig around in here another minute. Let me know me when you’re ready to scram!"

Walking to the kitchen, Yoshi deliberately trains his peripheral vision on Sable’s table. So deliberately, in fact, that he manages to walk straight into the swinging kitchen doors face-first without hearing anything. It doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t make him feel like a world-class shinobi, either. This time, it’s the crow guard’s turn to glance halfway over his shoulder at the goofy new server.

Inside the kitchen, it looks like everyone is temporarily absorbed in their own tasks once more. The dish pit is obviously still overflowing, and there are a couple more trays in expo nearly ready to run out, but the sous is now wing-deep in a row of flaming woks and can’t immediately give Yoshi a new task.