The Sheep's Eye Roadhouse

I do not do commissions.

If any of the art from this blog ends up on the Midnight Burger newsletter, I wasn't asked and didn't give my permission.

AO3 account (mostly Frank/Trinkett bullshit): SheepsEye

The original coalition was six planets, one of which was Sigius, which is in Andromeda. We know Urt is in Andromeda. Greedon and Septsu provided stellar cartography for the Vargen, so they're probably also in Andromeda. The Iron Quadrant is in Andromeda, and Vapus-10 going black hole cut off all the major trade routes into that quadrant, so Vapus-10 probably needs to be in Andromeda too... ah, confirmation Andromeda is where the original Coalition was in Sheep, okay. So all the original Coalition is in Andromeda.

We know that Krok the Propagator was operating in Andromeda, because Jezinka says the planet of Wren in the Bracken system is in Andromeda, which means that M-Lynn, Lahari, and Nyx are probably all also in Andromeda.

Ted Home World is in the Bethany Elliot system, which is based on those name-a-star kits, which means that Ted is probably in the Milky Way. But Minsky claims Låfftrax controls the Milky Way and is moving into Andromeda and Triangulum, which... may not ENTIRELY be contrary to how the Ted Empire operates. And the way Leif talks about the Teds in Leifs as the hall monitors of the Milky Way makes me fairly certain they're in the Milky Way. I suspect they were technologically advanced a lot sooner than most of the Coalition Planets, because they would have needed to travel to Andromeda at sub-light in order to show up with their warp gate proposal when they did.

What do we know about Triangulum... Verge calls it the place where all the deeply strange people are, it's where all the alien fungal strains in Cameron's house come from, Sigius has colony candidate planets there, Quilandis is not in Triangulum, outer rim of Triangulum is where the Teds were doing their time crystal experiment, and that's where Meesock's workshop was discovered.

I'm going to guess that Quilandis is in Andromeda, if it's not in Triangulum, because it's where Leif went to ground after leaving Låfftrax, which means he'd have probably wanted to get away from them.

Red's Rectangle is (I think) in the Red Rectangle Nebula, which means it's in the Milky Way. I'm going to guess based on that that the Galaxy Brain is also in the Milky Way.

Doesn't help that it's not really clear how long transit via Warp Gate takes, or how fast ships move in local space between stars. We know sub-light, we can maybe approximate something for moving in gravity wells based on the amount of time it takes for Verge to get from Earth to the moon, but that's not going to be the same as interstellar distances, because it sounds like the warp gate has to be actively attached to a star to work, so it's not like the Teds can have a warp gate closer to Earth than the nearest non-Sun star, and Leif managed a trip home to Earth in 8 days.

The Horrible Sigian (right) vs. a standard Sigian (left, young Berts), because I'm off in my horrible little rabbit hole making terrible OCs.

The Horrible Sigian is old enough to have been well out of her Sinder at the time of the Vapus turning into a black hole incident and has been living on non-Sigius planets ever since, systematically changing her appearance over that time due to the fact that she's mostly making her living by stealing things for other people and occasionally hacking shit. She's already a lot taller than the average Sigian by dint of living places with low(er) gravity for a really long time, but she's also gotten surgery to extend her leg bones and always wears at least short heels to change her height. She has also replaced her eyes, gotten cartilage implants in her nose and ears to change the shape, gotten bone grafts to change the shape of her skull, and has undergone gene therapy that's shifted her skin color in a more purple direction (but hasn't rid her of the spots that Sigians have, so she also usually wears makeup to conceal them).

For three weeks when she’d been thirteen years old, Ava had had an absolutely devastating crush on Caspar.

It had been embarrassing, that crush. Caspar was basically her older brother, and treated her like his little sister, too. Thank goodness it had gone away quickly, never to rear its ugly head again.

and also Verge and Deidre do Alien Show and Tell (and maybe some light bondage)

“I choose… this one,” Deidre said, scooping one of the items off the top of the dresser in Verge’s room at the Horizon. She turned and held it out. “What have I got here?”

Verge tried not to laugh. Oh, she would pick that one. “What do you think you have there?” “Well…” Deidre dangled the item from one finger. “It looks like a set of handcuffs.” “Mm-hm.” “Made for someone with a second, smaller set of arms,” she continued. “Really. You think so?” “Well, that’s what it looks like. Why don’t you tell me what it’s really for?”

------

“It appears that there is a vacuum to fill here, if one moved quickly and had the assistance of someone well-versed in the manipulation of security systems, isn’t that right, Bugaboo?”

“I do believe you are correct, Battlepope.” Bugaboo looks at you and raises his eyebrows, eyes gleaming with avarice. “Perhaps it is to our advantage that we seem to be in the company of someone who has proven herself to have just such skills.”

“Excuse me? Are you asking me if I can hack the security systems on the fucking Alex P. Keaton?” You give them an incredulous look.

“Could you?” Battlepope asks.

“I don’t see why I should cooperate with you,” you respond.

“I don’t see why not,” Bugaboo says. “It would be a vast improvement of circumstances for all of us.”

“You kicked me in the face!” You shake your head. “I know how this goes. I’m going to be useful to you just long enough to get you into that ship’s systems, and then I’m toast. No thank you. I'll take my toast now.”

“It occurs to us that the matter of security systems is one of an ongoing sort under circumstances such as these,” Battlepope says.

“One might wish to have a full-time employee to deal with them on retainer,” Bugaboo says.

“And one might wish to treat that employee with quite the degree of amiability,” Battlepope says.

“It wouldn’t do to get on her bad side,” Bugaboo says.

“You. Kicked. Me. In. The. Face,” you remind him.

——

“You!”

It’s the shortest sentence you’ve heard out of that mouth, but you recognize that voice, and the anger in that bellowed word. A startled “Oh, shit,” exits your mouth and you start running, but Sigians aren’t really made for running, not the way these fuckers apparently are. You’re tackled to the ground within a few steps. Well, at least they didn’t go straight to shooting at you, though you suppose that any collateral damage in Raxius could easily snowball into more trouble than you’re worth.

“Hello, Battlepope,” you say conversationally to the person currently pinning you to the ground with all his weight. “Where’s my other boyfriend, then?”

A pointy-toed boot catches your chin in a kick, snapping your mouth shut. “None of that from you,” Bugaboo says.

But you can’t help it, not when you’re so sure you’re about to die. “What’ll it be this time? Summary execution, I take it?” You wiggle your hips up against Battlepope’s. “Or are you still interested in—“

“That is quite enough of that,” Battlepope says, clamping one massive hand over your mouth. “You have the gag now, don’t you, Bugaboo?”