Cheevwut, do you mind? We're busy trying to come up for excuses for violating international laws.
By the way, the printed book for Runaway to the Stars (the one you're reading right now) will be funding on Kickstarter next month. Click the button over here to get email notified when it goes live: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ironspike/runaway-to-the-stars
Since I always get asked, yes I have a series of books planned with these characters, this first one is about 309 pages. I'll be taking a break after this one finishes to write the next one and I'll be back when I'm drawing finished pages for it.
Transcript
Ranni: I noticed this convoy has a vessel marked as a passenger ship? But we don't have any personnel scheduled to leave until the 21st.
Talita and Idrisah look at each other, wide-eyed.
Ranni: I also don't recall Ixion owning a passenger ship of this class, just ground to orbit boats. I just wanted to check if there was an entry error.
Idrisah glances down at Cheewut, who stares at her with expectant curiosity.
Idrisah: It’s… uh…
Talita barges into the cubicle, making Idrisah flinch.
Talita: Hi Ranni! Talita here! I can explain!
60 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 250”
Sabella
I feel like the next page is going to have me saying, “why’d you spill yer beans?”
redsquidz
From Ranni’s pov it looks like T might be talking out of her ass
1d4-nadg
And yet, we all know she speaks out of her trunk
Sen
Looking back to the very start of the story is incredible how far the characters have come. And yet they still have so far to go.
Athelind Llewellyn Long
Lightyears, even
arf
“It’s me, hi, I’m the problem, it’s me”
(Talita’s a Taylor Swift fan!?)
forthebit
Talita and Idrisah apparently don’t have much experience in the “Huh, I’m not sure what’s going on there, I’ll look into it and get back to you once I’ve got more information” > [ghost indefinitely until either problem no longer exists or they contact you again] form of panic. Also known as the “programmer’s ETA”. 😛
aron
Cheevwut’s general “not reading emotions of other sophonts all that well or perhaps not caring that much in the first place” is doing a lot of work in this scene. it’s bad when it makes them not care about Talita’s panic. but now it’s good.
they’re probably just sitting there thinking “wow the orbital grandma polycule isn’t THAT intimidating”
1d4-nadg
I wonder how much of it is them not caring / badly reading emotions, and how much of it is us not reading theirs
Jay Eaton
Hate to tell you this but Cheevwut has been reading Talita and Idrisah’s faces accurately the entire time.
milk4evertoasted
ughh im on the edge of my seeaaat!!!!!!!
Martin
SHE’S GOING TO RUN AWAY
Chevichurro
To the stars maybe?
Mitta
Hey, Zuko here
gigithebear
talita: its me im the passenger get me the fuck out of here
oliver
lmao
godspeed
Hi Ranni, Talita here, I can explain.
I was am quitting, too and I just haven’t found the time to tell you yet, bye 🙂
Teod
Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh.
thistle
i think gillie better get her computer packed up quick lmao! she and idrisah might be leaving a bit earlier than they’d planned…..
Salp
Kids, this is when you say, “huh, that is odd! Let me look into it and get back to you.” So you can TALK THROUGH YOUR COVER STORY in a SECURE LOCATION without your GOSSIPY COWORKER listening over your shoulder!! Or you can declare your intent to run away from your job on the spot. That works too. (I wonder if Talita is going to volunteer Idrisah and Gillie to leave with Bip? I don’t know if that makes any more sense….)
EnchantressEmily
Cheevwut looking up at Idrisah like :3
Athelind Llewellyn Long
more like :::3
EnchantressEmily
Oh, good one! I should have thought of that when I was trying to figure out how to do an avian emoji.
Lilac
Yall should’ve come up with a lie to prepare beforehand in case this happened…….. cmon…….
1d4-nadg
Maybe they did and Idrisah is just paralysed by anxiety.
Chase Wanderstar
That does, in fact, sound like Idrisah…
XtraStudios
Oh boy.. low-key on the edge of my seat rn
nomessaodificeis
Talita lock in! 🤞
Heather
Panic attack AVERTED by a second reason to panic
JoeBob
two simultanious panic attacks cancel each other out and take a screenshot
Der-on
Why Does This Sound Like The “WHOLESOME! bully torments trans student by using their preferred pronouns”
SIGSTKFLT
Let’s not all panic at once. Well have to take shifts.
Mr. Skeleton
Oh man is Talita gonna get herself on board and peace out to avoid having to deal with the centaur situation?
Vinemaple
Oooughhh, I did not expect this! Talita, what hastily-concocted bullshit are you gonna tell Ranni? The way this is going, they are gonna need Guiomar (the space lawyer) before the end of book 1!
JoB
I don’t think that Talita will get to explain anything, because Bip will hijack the session, impersonate her, and present a cover story in her stead.
Why? Well, if you’ll remember page 151, Talita planned to give Bip about ten tons of deuterium for fuel, and even Idrisah knew immediately that there’s no way that with that little fuel, the Runaway would make it to the wormhole within the usual time. Fast forward to today, not a word about making more fuel than that for Bip, and the Runaway is now supposed to go out as part of a convoy. Whatever story Talita was going to tell Ranni, it would have had to explain why the mystery vessel would be completely unable to keep up with the rest of that convoy.
However, the Runaway “coasting for decades”, as Idrisah put it, likely with no surplus energy to run any life support to boot, is incompatible with what we know the future plot will be. In order to make the plot happen, Bip must have secretly upped the amount of fuel they got out of the electrolysis plant. A lot. But since the other protagonists don’t know that yet, none of them could now present a cover story of their own that would still agree with the later, very much observable, developments.
(I did the math when we learned that Bip had used the plant’s surplus O2 to fill the Runaway’s habitat with a breathable atmosphere again: Producing that much O2 IIRC translates to only in the order of two tons of deuterium, so no contradiction to the planned 10 t there.)
topaz
Oh! What if they siphoned off the fuel from the new ships sold for scrap?
JoB
Hmmmm. That depends on whether “Unitine’s revolutionary material science research” means that they’re running on some other fuel …
I suspect that Talita would have thought of siphoning doot from other scrap if said scrap weren’t systematically emptied before planetfall, though … (What better way to keep the orbital station, skyhook, ferries, and whatever vessel brings all that scrap to Dirtball topped up than to snarf fuel from the cargo?)
FunkyTrashCan
Actually, Bip did tell Talita that they had managed to process 100 tons of heavy water on page 222. Though she was distracted to all hell so who knows if she picked that up.
JoB
Ah, indeed. 100 tons of D2O processed translates to 20 tons of deuterium output (assuming no losses), so Bip was already at twice the initial estimate there …
(It was pointed out on page 167 that “heavy water” really means D2O here, not DOH, where 100 tons’ lossless deuterium yield would be 10.5 tons.)
un_pogaz
Oh wait.
Don’t tell me that, in her panic, Talita is going to runaway to the stars before handing in her resignation?
Archieve
It would be funny if they could convince Cheev to gaslight management into thinking she already submitted her resignation 2 weeks ago. Mel doesn’t remember? tsk, must not have been listening again. Ohwitill has no record? wow between this and the supplier mess up their really off their game this month aren’t they?
cain
that’s been my assumption. it’s not “Give Your Two Weeks Notice Before Tactfully Exiting To The Stars”
Athelind Llewellyn Long
Okay, you win the comments section for today. The rest of us can go home now.
MonstieMunchies
Idrisah’s expressions on this page are my favorites so far! especially the panel where shes glancing at Cheevwut
Ruby
“This is not what it looks like!”
un_pogaz
“When someone say that, in most cases, it exactly what it looks like.”
Redacted
“Now I know that sounds bad-“
ttt
*this* is when you use your distracting speaking anatomy for good by pointing your trunk *directly* into the camera and making the hominid in question stare curiously at your vocal ridges while you feed them a line of pure horseshit
Gar G
xDDD
(honestly it is weird to picture it coming out of her trunk, because with her expression I keep seeing it coming from her mouth)
JoB
Ranni, later talking about this scene: “Yeah, the moment I saw that trunk pointed straight at me, I knew she was going to try and sell me a whopper.”
eden
ooop talita is quitting after all!
Claire
Honestly, I love Ranni. Just a few things seem odd- is this some weird plot? What? No! It’s probably just a misentry. Lets just check in, no big deal.
Also, That’s a lot more dangly thing than I would expect someone in microgravity to have. They must pull a bit when rotating. Would that mean they act as secondary whiskers when rotating?
eden
I think they’d be just as weightless as anything g else, basically the only way i’d wear heavy jewelry lol
Avardent
They may be weightless but they still have mass. Whenever you move around they lag behind and pull
Claire
They don’t have to weigh much- just have any mass at all. Think about a jewelry chain- super lightweight. It still goes downward with the acceleration of gravity. In microgravity, though, it would float around. Any rotation would accelerate it outwards, pulling on the base. The same thing would happen with the ponytail and the ear jewely. Anything sticking out, really!
But then, they already have whiskers, and those would feel those same forces. Those seem to be beneficial… I’m wondering, is the jewelry an extension of that?
Jay Eaton
It simply looks cool. Humans wear all sorts of bizarre inconvenient things in the interest of looking cool
tyrone
Me thinks Talita is going to….tell a fip!
Vinemaple
A fip about Bip
Bug
a fip.. 🙂
Adrienne
A Bip fib, also known as a fip,