The Legend of Brumpo Tungus

The crew accepts a job to steal a hyperboat and Brumbpo Tungus is born

Job Accepted: Steal a Hyperboat
The episode begins with a quick scene, showing Higgins leaving a letter at a dead-drop. The message simply contains a large red box with an exclamation mark inside of it. Lacking the proper funds to repair their ship, the crew look for work under their trusted employer, Rajani Van Dorne. Rajani informs the crew that a woman named Kira Ingasa is an up-and-coming hyperboat racer on Asa and apparently has a very expensive hyperboat that certain people would pay a lot of money for. Rajani is a friend of one of Ingasa's former managers, Moses Jones, and she is willing to offer Higgins 40% of the 1.5 million credit bounty if they can steal the hyperboat. In the end, Higgins manages to sweet-talk Rajani into giving the crew 60% instead.

Towards the end of their meeting, Rajani pulls Erik for an aside and explains that two members of the Mabari Zoon are looking for him, and that she is willing to hide any valuable resources that the crew may have gathered during their travels. In the end, the crew temporarily give Rajani the psychic crystals that they found on Pitcairn Station, and Pi's dormant robot body.

Before leaving, Alpharius recognizes something vaguely familiar with Rajani's companion, Serena. On a hunch, Alpharius walks up to Serena, says that he is a cyborg, and asks if she is one as well. Serena embarrassingly blushes and gives no response. Alpharius apologizes for his speech and goes on to say that he was once a human, but that his humanity was taken away from him and that he is still trying to figure out how to interact with humans again. With Serena is remaining silent, the crew leave Rajani's office.

On the Way to Asa
The next day, Rajani gives the crew one-way tickets to Asa where the hyperboat is currently being stored. Before leaving: The crew accepts Sunbeam's offer to repair their ship for 215,000 credits which will be added on to their overall payment of the ship which is now at 1,157,989 credits, Piani does her best to hide Pi's presence on-board the ship, Higgins receives a message from an unknown tipper that explains that he may not be as supported as he thinks he is, and Erik looks over the hyperboat schematics. The hyperboat is colored very brightly with green and orange accents, it is covered in logos for various local Asan companies as well as a couple larger, sector-wide corporations, the engine resembles that of something found in a starship, and most of all of the parts are completely custom-made and can't be traced to any single major outfitter.

Alamo City, the city of hyperboat racing. Hyperboat qualifications take place all-throughout the sector but the main event is held in this city which is only five days away. The crew's current mission is to steal Kira Ingasa's hyperboat, preferably before the race, and take it to a Madari Syndicate safe-house. Due to the expensive nature of the hyperboat, driver Kira Ingasa has hired a security team to look after it. All of the hyperboat drivers seem to have their own gimmick. Kira is the newbie and this is her first big race, as well as the first race using her brand-new hyperboat. One of the more interesting contestants, El Gato Caliente, is a man who left Onintza to become a hyperboat racer when the planet's civil war started. He wears a Luchador mask with cat ears and has a very mean personality. Erik suggests that Alpharius be a driver with a personality like him, and that the rest of the party will act as his pit-crew. The next time the crew sees Alpharius, he is wearing a suit made up of hard angles that all go backwards as if he is moving really fast. And thus begins the story of the man named Brumbpo Tungus.

En route to Asa, the crew, especially Piani with her hacking, spread rumors of the driver named Brumbpo Tungus. He supposedly died in a horrible crash, went to Hell, challenged Satan to a race, and won. He was then rebuilt, a demon in a human body—just with cybernetics.

Brumbpo Tungus
The camera zooms into a city floating above blue water. A long, glowing-blue track weaves itself through the city, making up a large portion its infrastructure. As the crew disembark from the public yacht, the subtitles read, 'Planet Asa - Coal Trickle Interplanetary Spaceport'. They arrive in front of a large concrete statue similar to that of the 'Jesus of Rio' but with a ratty baseball cap resting on top of the head. The popularity of the race has attracted a large crowd which is currently hustling and bustling around the spaceport that the crew steps out onto.

Nearby, the crew checks in to the most prestigious hyperboat hotel. The lobby is decorated in traditional Asan fashion, containing a bar that takes up an entire side of the building, housing hundreds of variations of liquor, most of them containing whiskey. The entire hotel is outfitted with, what would be considered today, as corny, western-style decorations. For the people on Asa however, this style is considered reverent and classy. The crew arrive at the front desk where a woman named Sally-Anne greets them, and asks them if they have a reservation. Higgins tells her that they have a reservation under the name "Brumbpo Tungus." When the woman asks how to spell it, Alpharius rests his arm on the desk and says in a very condescending tone (and western-faux accent), for her to pretend to have the minimal intelligence of an elephant and then to type what comes to mind. Seemingly flustered, the receptionist doesn't move. Alpharius then continues in his disingenuous tones, telling the woman that she can go as fast as she likes and that patience is not necessarily a virtue at the moment. He then asks her to imagine the current situation like it is a race, but instead of using her legs, she has to use her mind.

While this entire situation unravels itself, Piani has been working on hacking the reservation list. At the end of Alpharius' rant, when the receptionist goes back to look at the current reservations, she finds one under the name "Brumbpo Tungus." The party then gets handed a key as well as a complementary shotgun with the hotel name engraved on the side.

At the sight of the shotgun, Alpharius responds:

"Mechanic [Erik], if you could pick up this collection of what could be best described as the grubby hands of a civilization of people that probably don't know the best way to not clean their assholes without their own hands... If you could carry that upstairs, that would be wonderful. I'll pretend to use it and pay them the common courtesy of acting like I'm impressed.... Ma'am, I've raced hyperboats. I could've died in the amount of time it took you to figure out my name. If you could go ahead and improve upon that speed next time, I would be most... less unimpressed."

Piani came through and got them a suite high-up in the hotel. Inside is a beautiful view of the city as well as a welcome basket containing champagne and various forms of memorabilia. The bed in the main bedroom is shaped like a hyperboat and there is an empty gun-rack positioned above the bed. Every room contains at least one bottle of whiskey, including the bathroom. Higgins immediately calls the front desk and informs them that there is a problem, Brumbpo Tungus didn't get his cantaloupe.

A legend is born.

El Gato Caliente's Challenge
The doorbell to their suite rings and a man walks in wearing a black suit with a bolo tie. He has a bowler hat in his hands, a pencil moustache, and his hair is parted in the middle and slicked back. A pin on his lapel informs the crew that he is a member of the hyperboat racing commission. The man asks if he may speak to Brumbpo Tungus. When Alpharius arrives in front of the man, the man slaps Alpharius with one of his gloves and says that he is there on behalf of El Gato Caliente. Alpharius then says,

"You tell El Gato Caliente that If I wanted a challenge, I would challenge myself to think of something nice to say about him. What's going to happen tomorrow on that boat track can best be described as probably the bowel movement of what most people experience when they taste the cuisine from his home planet. I deign not even to speak of it for I fear that it might come out of my mouth the same way it comes out of so many rectums on his home planet. That it would be likened to my face opening up, one big brown hole at a time, and becoming... a sludge factory as such. I will not use any more words to describe it, but I want you to pass that along to him. And tell him that tomorrow, after I destroy him, I would appreciate it if he would slap himself in remembrance of this moment in time."

Sally-Anne arrives at the door with a silver platter containing a whole cantaloupe, surrounded by racks of ribs and a flower-arrangement of buffalo wings—all arranged like the Birth of Venus, the pearl in an oyster. Higgins picks up a rib and tells Sally-Anne that if the ribs are sweet, then they are going to have a problem. That Brumbpo Tungus is extremely sensitive to anything sweet. At this point in time, Alpharius yells from inside the room, asking if his cantaloupe has arrived. Stunned, Sally is unable to produce any sound from her mouth. Higgins then smears one of the ribs all over her face, says that the rib is too sweet, and then asks her to take the ribs back and get some better ones.

Planning the Heist
Erik and Higgs discuss their strategy to steal Kira Ingasa's hyperboat, including the route of the race. During Erik's research, his comm pad suddenly dies. Erik claims he memorized the route and everything was OK. Sally-Anne then returns with a proper platter.

The crew spends the night in the hotel.