Rolling Up The Hill is the second episode of season 12, A Starstruck Odyssey.
Intro[]
"Last we left off, our Intrepid Heroes were aboard The Red Hot in the Hecatoncheires asteroid cluster with a crate that they believed was gonna be full of Borinyum Krystals, but instead was full of some spoiled, powdered imitation egg substitute, bummer. You see, (beeps) AnarchEra 220. The Red Hot, a hot dog-shaped starship floating in the twinkling starlight in the asteroid cluster. And lying out on his berth in the captain's quarters with his own personal med-kit hooked up to him is the unconscious Skipper. Who has been moved here after some kind of weird reaction. Hard to tell exactly what it was. Could have been some weird chemical reaction of whatever spoiled the egg substitute, could've been some bit of the ship malfunctioning, the ship took a lot of hull damage, shields are down."
Synopsis[]
We open with the crew of the Red Hot standing around Captain Norman Takamori as he lies unconscious, but stable, in his bed after being attacked by some unknown green slime at the end of the previous episode. With the captain unconscious, the rest of the crew does some post-battle housekeeping. Sundry Sidney plies the Jib-Job workers into keeping their contracts with the Red Hot by making them free coffee. Riva tries to explain Pleasure Putty to the crew. Gunnie assesses the damage to the ship. Vital repairs for the ship, restocking, and refueling end up costing 3,200 credits, far exceeding what they can afford. Margaret offers to pay off all the vital costs, and requests that they go to Rubian V to get all of the repairs done. The rest of the crew, stunned but grateful, immediately complies to Margaret’s request, and even suggests that Margaret be named the unofficial skipper. Margaret pays and leaves the room when Lucienne Rex messages her, asking to talk.
Meanwhile, it is revealed that the mysterious green slime that had launched itself at Norman is a Cerebroslug that has now taken over Norman’s mind and body. Prior to being aboard the Red Hot, it was frozen in space for an unknown amount of time. It begins to familiarize itself with the “controls” of its new host, attempting to remain undetected. This immediately goes awry due to Riva’s telepathy and the rest of the crew noticing their captain’s odd physicality and lack of verbal abuse.
The Cerebroslug, who the crew calls "Skip", a nickname Norman despises, gains access to Norman’s memories and emotions. He learns that Norman was often cruel and projected self-criticism onto others. However, through Norman’s love of space exploration, Skip’s perception of space, which he only knew as the void he was frozen in, shifts to fascination.
The crew tests the limits of their captain; Riva asks for a promotion to assistant, Gunnie asks if they can start going for better paying missions, Sidney wants to increase the grenade budget, and they want to do a movie night. Skip agrees to all of this in order to remain as undetectable as possible, even though he’s already been found out. However, Skip seems far more cordial and easygoing than Norman ever was, so the crew decides to let “sleeping dogs lie.”
During this time, Margaret has a tense, passive-aggressive call with Lucienne. Margaret is upset with Lucienne that after all the years fighting to get to where they are, Lucienne just marries into the Scepter family and gets a promotion. Lucienne reveals that she knows that Margaret was attempting to stir up a revolution on Rubian V over Reddit, declaring that Margaret’s “lost her nerve.” She also knows that the Red Hot is headed to Rubian V. Margaret, unable to fight back without losing her job, says she’ll reach out in a few days, and ends the call. She joins the crew watching 200 Fast 200 Furious.
As the crew is retiring for the night, Riva helps Sidney learn to want things without another individual influencing her first. Gunnie spends the night “tutoring” kids i.e. doing their homework for them. Margaret informs Skip that they should dock at the UFTP-owned Madrugada Station that’s orbiting Rubian V. Skip accesses Norman’s memories and learns that Margaret was essentially financing the ship. He tells her, “you’re important,” immediately prompting her to start crying. Skip flies the ship through the night, having not turned on the pain systems to recognize that his legs are extremely sore from standing all night. They dock at Madrugada Station where Margaret uses her clearance badge to waive the docking fee.
The crew now have two malton units (two days) on the station while the ship is getting fixed. Margaret goes to find information on the political climate and possible revolution on Rubian V while trying to keep up appearances as a dedicated UFTP executive. She also posts a neck-down nude photo of herself to the same Reddit thread about the revolution to taunt Lucienne. Riva, piloting a “yellow, crash dummy-looking” psychodrone, tries to sell Pleasure Putty to a sign spinner for a sandwich shop who promises to buy some as long as Riva buys some sandwiches. Riva goes into the shop to buy sandwiches, only to discover that the man has left, and they decide to stand there until he comes back.
Gunnie, Barry, Sidney, and Norman head to “The Drone’s Throne,” a drinking hole around the corner from where they were gathering supplies for the ship. They order twelve drinks, which makes Gunnie overly confident and sends Sidney and Barry into existential crises. Sidney spots a proldier who might have a contract for them. Despite Sidney casting Enhance Droid on Gunnie, the interaction between him and the proldier is a catastrophe. Seeing how disastrously this is going, Sidney runs up behind Gunnie and shoots a missile of expensive-smelling perfume at him. Barry also senses this isn’t going well, so he informs the proldier that he farted and that’s why the room smells like lilac perfume. Skip introduces himself as Norman Takamori. The proldier calls Jan De La Vega to inform her that he’s caught the crew.
Margaret heads to an area without prying eyes and starts digging around for anything interesting happening moonside. She learns that a Rubian V royal, the Princeps Zortch, has gone MIA. The closest thing she can find to their whereabouts is a docking signature of a Rubian V spacecraft on Rec 97 within the right time frame. On that rec station, there is a reservation at a hotel attached to the ship’s credit account under the name Madeline Maud, a pseudonym Lucienne used the first time she and Margaret stayed at a hotel for a business conference.
Back at The Drone’s Throne, Jan De La Vega informs the crew via the proldier’s transponder that she’s on her way to kill them for their apparent trick with the crates of egg substitute. The crew beats the proldier to unconsciousness. Everyone runs back to the Red Hot, still damaged since not enough time has passed to even begin repairs, and heads to Rec 97 at Margaret’s request.