Janitorial ship The Velveteen Rabbit chugged along through debris scattered around the Vex system with a swagger of half-assed duty. This was punishment for imploding Lyme Node's prisoner moon of Tractos. The Node had not wanted to punish them at all for this, but Stane and Frappe's shift manager was a stickler for procedure.

They needed to be reprimanded for the error, and really, they had gotten off quite easy.

They vacuumed up, mulched, and spit out Vexian ship scraps, parts of the K'rown, and whole sections of what was left of Emperor Reginald Zophricates' old satellite lab.

The ship narrowly missed a piece of unassuming, not-worth-the-resources garbage before the chunk disappeared through a small, single-serving-sized worm-hole.

"Sa-Sa..." the huge, muscular Frappe said gingerly, lost in nervous thought.

"What?" sighed beach-ball-of-a-man Stane, with a tiny hiccup-burp.

"I have something I think I finally need to tell you."

"Is it that you were born in the wrong body?" Stane said nonchalantly, barely looking up. "What? You think I'm gonna freak out? I've read your lyric journal, like, sixteen times. We blew up a frikkin' moon! Go be a lady already!" he smiled. "You want a candy bar?"

Frappe looked over at her best friend and started crying.

(Disbelief!)