"Why is it you again?" Stark, leaning against the doorframe, watched Polaris filling out paperwork. "Are you sent by Congress to slow down our progress?"
"Tony Stark!" Polaris slapped the wall and regarded him. "You damned Playboy busybody, can you shut up? If you hang around here again, I'll tell Pepper tomorrow that you'd rather stand around and do nothing than go out with her!"
Stark rolled his eyes, stood up straight and said, "If it weren't for your useful abilities, I wouldn't have let a mutant be involved in this project!"
Before Polaris could respond, Stark held up a hand. "Don't say I discriminate against mutants. Do you know how much trouble you guys have caused? Have you filled in that big hole underneath the Mercury Base?"
Polaris, somewhat annoyed, tossed her paperwork aside and retorted, "They are them, and I am me, didn't I do a good job with the logistics before? Instead of blabbering here, why don't you tidy up that flaky old-fashioned hairstyle of yours! Dark brown waves? My God, I thought I was looking at my grandfather!"
She picked up the paperwork and stormed past Stark. He turned his head to watch her go, patting his hair and saying, "Hey, this is classic American vintage, you tasteless girl!"
Too tired to argue with him, Polaris left the Stark Building. As she got into her car, she started reading through the paperwork, her job description for the next project. As she read through it, an astonished exclaim of surprise escaped her lips.
"Solar System traffic control operations??? ...Um, what's this job? Is there traffic that needs to be controlled in the Solar System? Is Stark messing with me?"
She then opened up a set of gear that she'd received - a special spacesuit for cosmic operations, an instruction manual, and an emergency communicator - all included.
Polaris was confused. She skipped the instruction manual and began examining the spacesuit.
She noticed an 'X' inscribed on the edge of the helmet, presuming it was specially prepared for mutants. The material was very soft, just like ordinary clothes, and it didn't look as if it could offer any protection. Only the helmet was hard, much like a space suit's helmet.
Polaris grimaced slightly, but still put it on before she traveled above the Earth's atmosphere. The suit turned out to be far uglier than she'd thought.
It looked more like a diving suit than a spacesuit, especially the kind of old-fashioned diving suit that did not adhere well to the body, completely unable to emphasize the curves of her body. Even her fashionable green hair was hidden by the ugly helmet, making her look like a lightbulb.
As Polaris was hanging over the Earth, contemplating whether to return home to change, she felt a sudden shock.
Polaris was startled. She looked around and saw about 20 meters in front of her, two bizarre devices collided.
Polaris rushed to the scene and realized that two spacecrafts had collided.
On reaching the accident site, Polaris picked up a piece of wreckage and examined it. She discovered that one of them was a Stark transportation device as it had Stark's surname inscribed on it. The other looked like an experimental apparatus launched by a nation, containing a tomato and two green beans.
Looking at the tomato and beans in the experiment container, Polaris was bewildered. She didn't know much about space experiments and could only activate the emergency communicator.
Unbelievably, it was Stark himself who answered. Although Polaris was annoyed, she still informed him over the call, "Stark, one of your transport devices and... a tomato and green beans collided. You don't plan on checking it out?"
"Tomato and green beans??" Stark was puzzled. "Lorna Dane, I get that some people like to have a little drink before work. It helps them be more creative. I do, too. But didn't you have a bit too much before going into space??"
"How could my spacecraft collide with a tomato and green beans???"
Just as Polaris was about to speak, another crash sounded from behind her, this time further away, about 200 meters. Dropping the tomato and beans, she flew towards the new accident site.
Again, she discovered that the two colliding objects were even more peculiar. One was another Stark device, perhaps a satellite. The other bore a United Nations logo and contained a horn (loudspeaker).
"What's this?" Polaris pulled out the speaker from the wreckage, pressed a button and heard a somewhat familiar voice:
"Broadcasting next is the Human Space Legacy Inheritance Law... The Earth is a society governed by law. We emphasize that humans have a complete inheritance law for space legacy. All inheritances are reasonable, legal, and compliant..."
"What's happening? Why is there Nick's voice???" Asked a confused Stark from the communicator, "Aren't you going up? Are you at S.H.I.E.L.D? Is Nick making you spread rumors again?"
Polaris had no clue how to explain the situation. So, she returned to the first accident site, switched on the camera on her suit, held up her arm to show Stark: "Look, this is the tomato and green beans I was talking about..."
But before she could finish, she saw another spacecraft floating past, the side seemed damaged and was aimlessly drifting about like space junk.
Polaris stopped the spacecraft and found it to be from the same nation that had launched the tomato and green bean spacecraft. Even the experiment cabins were identical.
On opening the experiment cabin, she was even more perplexed. Inside it were potatoes, soybeans, wheat seeds, cabbage, carrots, broccoli, some unknown soil, foul-smelling fertilizer, and even some fodder...
Stark, of course, also saw all this, and Polaris shook her head and said: "Looks like it's from the same nation as the previous spacecraft, just not sure whose..."
"China!!!!!!!!!!!"
Stark's roar echoed through the cosmos, he barked: "Jarvis, connect me to SWORD immediately! Tell them to stop launching vegetables, fruits, seeds, soil, and fertilizer! You can't grow crops in space! You can't!!!"
"...What?... How many billion? No amount of billions will do! There is no place for crops on the Mercury Base! Venus? Venus is even worse! Mars? …Yes, I know, the climate on Mars is somewhat tolerable, but it still can't... Okay fine…"
"Listen, you cannot keep indiscriminately launching spacecraft. They could collide with my transport ships... No, I don't have anywhere to put these fruits and vegetables in my transport ships either…"
"Seeds? Hey, buddy, listen to me. My transport ships are specifically for transporting high-tech goods…"
"You have high-tech seeds?... But…Why aren't you understanding what I'm saying?... No, I can't go, I don't have time… Video conference? You don't mean to teach me how to grow crops, do you? Alright alright, just hold on…"
Then, Polaris heard Stark's voice over the phone, he said: "You clean up the mess."
"How am I supposed to do that?" Polaris questioned.
"Use your magnetic powers, drag them into the sun or make them disappear. Don't let these things get in the way. There are more ships coming this way to transport resources..."
Right as Polaris was about to start, Stark let out another roar: "No, wait!!!"
Then his voice became quieter, obviously speaking to someone else, he said: "…Really? Tomatoes, green beans, potatoes, soybeans, wheat, Chinese cabbage, carrots, broccoli, soil, and fertilizers... I'm supposed to send this all back to you???"
"Do you know how valuable my time is? What??? How many billions??... Saudi Arabia is paying for this?? What's this got to do with Saudi Arabia? You're saying this experiment is related to waterless or low-water cultivation?? And Dubai??"
"Alright, hold on... Someone, pack up all these damn vegetables, and send them back!"
"What? Shiller what are you saying? Wait, my psychologist has a problem with this... You said no broccoli?? Why no broccoli? One of your personalities really hates broccoli?? But they are offering a high price!"
"Okay, no broccoli, Lorna, no broccoli, don't bring back broccoli, or my psychologist will lose his mind!"
Polaris, standing in space and listening to all this, rolled her eyes, sighed, crossed her arms, and said to Stark:
"So, you want me to carry back all these...umm, vegetables, seeds, fertilizers, and even a bundle of hay by myself?? Stark, I work for you, but I'm not your slave. I mean, at least slaves have carriages and donkeys, you want me to carry all these back?!"
"And besides, could I even carry all this back? Where would I even put them?!"
Before Stark could even reply, Polaris felt another vibration. Turning around, she saw two more machines had collided.
No, this time it's more than just two. The location of this accident was quite close to the second collision, it started with one winged transport vehicle hitting the two previously damaged ones, then it turned into a pile-up.
Polaris flew over, but the more she progressed, the stranger everything became. She continuously saw bizarre things drifting by - first it was two bags of English tea, then a Mexican banana, two Cuban cigars, three lemons from Sicily, two German sausages, and a large Russian rye bread…
Stark's furious roar echoed across the cosmos again:
"Jarvis!! Connect to the United Nations!! Why are they sending all this nonsense to space?!!"
Polaris in space, confronted by all these oddities, was overwhelmed.
After a while, Stark's resigned voice came through: "Bring back a sample of each item, as for transportation, I'll dispatch a transport vehicle later, you just need to load everything in…"
"God! I thought they would use the tech I gave them to start an arms race, producing all kinds of space weapons... at the very least improve the transport efficiency and start sending various resources to space, but what on earth are they doing? Holding a space agricultural fair?!!"
"I don't know about the effects of cosmic radiation on agricultural goods…" Polaris muttered while wiping her mouth: "But I can assure you, it has no effect on sausages, and the rye bread is still hard as a rock, I can tell from experience."
"You actually ate it???... How did it taste?"
"Pretty bad, burp."