USF Progenitor & Crew: Adventures in Cosmos 01

AoT1P: [#43] Plea Deal or Bust

A female voice rang in to the engineering section of the space station: Niñniñ, kwõpãd ia?! Landrick!

Landrick kept his head down and turned the volume of the OH speaker all the way off. He sent a message out to whoever it was on his PCD, then returned to work. He was focused on building a satellite with fellow Micronesians, Filipinos, Mexicans, and Indians. All of them focused on themselves and their work, ignoring each other for the most part so they wouldn't disturb each other with their obvious language barriers.
One of the Indian men laughed at Landrick turning the OH speaker all the way off. Another man, Filipino, spoke in his language to another Filipino man hastily, then they both laughed.
Landrick stuck his tongue to his cheek and placed some force into retrofitting a piece of the satellite. Suddenly, his PCD started alerting him, multiple text messages coming in to his phone. He ignored the messages casually, then he said aloud, "Roñjake ñan in."
Another Micronesian worker stepped closer to where he was crouched down working. He pulled his PCD out and connected it to the OH speaker, overriding incoming calls from foreign signals.

"I like that more!" The Indian man yelled from across the room.
Another Indian man proclaimed, "Me too! Turn it up! Turn down for what? Am I right, my friend?"
The Micronesians and Filipinos shared in chuckling together, constructing the satellite, following paper instructions, screen display instructions, and vaping. A Micronesian worker asked Landrick, "Ewi wãween kõṃṃan kwe kõṃṃan e etal ilo top?" He tried pushing the piece in to the fitting, then accidentally dropped his fastening tool. He went aiiiyah and exclaimed, "Sh$t!"
"No, that piece. You need something else for that," Landrick said, pointing at the screen display to the side. He remained crouched, working his piece into the body of the satellite, slowly turning it so it wouldn't break so easily.
The Micronesian worker next to him went to pick up the tool and ran up to the screen to look over the satellite model again. He was thinking to himself and said, "No, this one..."
"No, you don't need the driver for that one. It's supposed to snap into place, and then you fit the small pieces over the top, when you pull down the big, circle washer thing," Landrick explained.
The Mexicans looked at each other, wearing their sunglasses, smiled, then went back to working on the satellite. One of them said, "Que es esto. Puto! Puta a la mierda! Tambien... que? Hey, uhh, what is your name again?"
Landrick looked up and saw the Mexican engineer looking at him. He said, "Landrick," very plainly, then licked his lips.
"Ai! This thing!" The Mexican engineer said. "How come they no make it easy?"
"You have to read the instructions. Over there!" Landrick directed, pointing at the large screen display again. "Go over there and then you see, it will tell you."
"Sí?" Asked the Mexican engineer to the other Mexican Engineer who nodded at him in agreement. They both smiled and joked at each other, the essence of the joke being that one of them was stupid while the other wasn't.
"No, puto! Tu," one of them said to the other.
"And why we need sunglasses? We are not welding," Landrick said, carefully constructing his words.
"Uhh, yo no sé. Yah! How come we need glasses?" Asked the Mexican engineer.
"Sí..." the other Mexican engineer replied. He shook his head and blew out a long sigh that sounded like a whistle. He crouched down to look inside of a small cargo bin, pulling wires and cables out of it and setting them neatly on the ground next to him.
The Micronesians and Filipinos looked more at each other and quickened their work pace. The Micronesian at the large screen with the instructions on it said, "They say use that piece, then it doesn't say..." He kept looking at the figure model and then at the actual satellite, back and forth between the two. "I getting headache!"
Landrick snickered with his mouth sealed in a smile. He got his piece installed into the satellite, calmly holding it in place. He quickly grabbed a fastener from the floor and connected it into one of the holes, setting it to be bolted in. One by one, he grabbed one fastener after the other, placing them into the holes like pegs. He thought to himself, are these supposed to slide in like this? He furrowed his brows with one of the fasteners still held between his lips.
"I give up!" Said one of the Mexican engineers. "I give up, this thing no work." He ducked underneath one of the satellite wings then headed toward the back wall of the room, opening up a cooler and grabbing a soda pouch.
"If this thing doesn't work, then we no work!" Said another Mexican engineer, prompting the soda drinking engineer to cackle loudly. "Then we no work, Nathan. No more work! We go home!"
"Ay, thing done already, then! We send 'em back the same way they gave 'em to us!" One of the Filipino workers called out jokingly.
The group of men chuckled then quickly went back to focusing. They gave a few sighs, moans, and groans, annoyed with the confusion between the instructions and the actual satellite build.
Landrick took a break from his focus and asked openly, "Hey, who made this? Who created this satellite?"
Nathan, still drinking his soda pouch, gave a rough AAAAaah! He smiled and joked, "Whoever made this satellite doesn't work here anymore." That prompted a few of the other engineers to laugh in response.
"Fired!" Yelled out one of the Micronesian engineers, walking across the room to the other screen display to scroll the list of available parts. "Who not checking off the list? The whole thing say you guys doing nothing. Fired!"
Landrick chuckled to himself, listening to the group banter with each other trying to figure out how to piece together the rest of the satellite. When he took a step back from it, it was noticeably clean in its assembly, and looked professionally well done. He said, "I don't know where it comes from, but it looks like it will work."

Landrick's buzzed again, this time only one message. He knew that wasn't a good sign with his lady friend, if she only sent one message. He quickly checked the message. It was from a different CID that read Ka'eo Caval. His eyes went intense at what he was seeing, bringing back a few memories that stirred him up. For some reason, he visualized giant, full, emerald green trees in the sunlight, and then he remembered. He told his fellow coworker, "Ij lõmnak juon call is aorõk. Kõttar." He read the message again to himself:

Scorpio to Virgo, got a job for you. Ka'eo.

He tried to think of what that could mean, and what kind of job Ka'eo was talking about. He noticed another number and name attached to the message, then fell reserved, not yet certain if he should reply. He fixed his engineering hat that was faced to the back, then felt like fixing his sunglasses, but he wasn't wearing any. He thought to himself, now this could be an opportunity worth pursuing, or it could be another... adventure. He felt like he was laughing on the inside, but he didn't show it at all on the outside. He simply licked his lips, locked his PCD, and placed it back into his pocket. Landrick crouched down in front of the satellite again, thinking, how bad could it be if I'm already up here in space?