Far away and fuzzy. Maybe it's staticky, interdimensional radio signals. A young, male voice says, it's just keeping them alive anyway like he's three galaxies over.

The further down the hexagonal hall you travel, the louder the initial thunking becomes. Rhythmic. A thunk,
a pause, another thunk, and then the quiet synthetic squeeze of gloves. You come out at the nesting deck, and the voice is right in the middle of your ears.

useless until it wants something
the rest of them can be idiots if they want

A boy in an odd, skin-tight black suit is sitting on an organic hump. He's tossing something back and forth between the neighboring wall, an emerald orb that he catches and throws, catches and throws. He glances up, feeling you, and the green ball rolls into the palm of his hand as it comes back.

You can see that it's an eyeball.

[It feels like a drawn-out fetch quest. Joichiro and you are only trying to get the subtly radioactive material that will power what needs to be powered. But you both had to talk to one person, then they needed this, but to get this, you both had to talk to another person and they needed that, but to get that...

The pirates are peddling a brick of herbal aphrodisiac that's really a highly concentrated poison. They're being picky. Joichiro is too tired to bother using his "gift" to get what is needed.

His finger pulls the bottom trigger on the x-gun long before he raises it; the delay in firing is atrocious.] Blah, blah. No moron has to pay that for your shitty excuse of a drug if you're dead. [By the time it's pointed in the pirate's face, the charge is glowing on the skin. The pirate's face is lasered into four sections and explodes.

Hope you're ready for a fight; the rest of the crew is now up in arms.]