The story as it goes

Chapter 1 Somewhere in the Rifts a voidjammer is under attack from pirates. Klaxons sounding, monitors flashing alerts as the damage is inflicted on the ship., the air is growing thick with the acrid smell of something burning until life support sucks it away to the scrubbers. The subliminal vibration of the engines disappear but echoes radiates through the plating as two pirate ships attach themselves to the hull. Cloey is holding on to a nearby console, while studying the readouts from the engines as she is muttering something about how dare they hurt her baby, looks up to say “Cutting through the hull in Cargo bay 4 and 9”. Atty, quivering in excitement, is crouched poised to rush off into battle while Atty double checks Atty's weapons. Rev, standing balanced, as the rocking of the ship is a natural feel to him. Without thought, he grins while efficiently checking his weapons and thinking about where to ambush the soon to be boarders. Nator moving back and forth between a viewscreen showing the pirates ships which looks to worth a decent amount of credits and an internal monitor showing his small salvager ship “Fido” being exposed to vacuum as the pirates cut a hole in the hull. Oda is jabbering in his native tongue as he is trying to twirl the mule about in an effort to dodge the attacks but soon realizes how futile that was as two of the pirate darts attach to the ship. Brossu laments to his buddy “Oda, I swear it was suppose to be a simple cargo run” as he thinks back to how it all started on Deep Space 6 when he placed his advert for a crew.  Three days earlier ...... While stopping in the Leaky Hull pub on his way home from work, Nator sees an advert looking for a spacer crew, since he was partly responsible for bringing the settler ship back in mostly one piece he wanders over to the ship after a beer or three to apply. Brossu Berkesto had just lost his last credit in an ill advised wager, a fist fight between a Louhos and a puny human should have been easy money... how was he to know the human was a Heavy Worlder whose punches were like blows from a pneumatic hammer! There was nothing to it, he was going to have to head back out on some runs. At least he still had Oda, the Nibiran was smart, and loyal, enough to take his pay before letting Brossu loose in the bars and gambling dens. Having heard rumours of potential salvage options in the rift he was going to need more crew if turning a profit was likely... hopefully those adverts he'd put out would attract more than down and out space junk... Rev had been lurking around with the more unsavory types of the station, earning some extra credits in illegal brawls. He recently knocked out a Louhos who underestimated his claims of advanced training and genes. He had spent most of his earning to stay under the radar as possible, he had been spending too much time on the station which made him nervous. "Finally found some info on a job for a crew," Vaina, his AI and friend, suddenly interrupts him as he was cleaning his weapons in his room. "Hmm...not sure if I'm up for a crew." He says a bit lazily as his focus remains on his weapons. "You better be, you need to get moving. And a voidjammer is the best place for that." Vaina states very strongly. Rev suddenly puts his weapons back together and gets up. Taking a deep breath he mutters, "Right." Vaina brings the information up as Rev puts his gear on. The last thing to be put on is his Vibro bladed spear, in its dagger mode, which he holsters at his side very carefully. He heads out looking to talk with who ever posted the advert for the open crew positions. Nator decides to head to the ship of the advert owner even though he confirmed the meeting at a bar dive named “Kepler's Hole” that is on the low levels where the rougher crowd tend to gather. Rev gives Vaina a mental grunt of agreement when he mutters “Right” to himself as he looks over the room while running his hands across his weapons for one last check before walking out the door. Vaina brings up a schematic of DS6 public areas and shows a convert path of travel in Rev's vision “Going this route gets us there in about an hour so I scheduled the meeting in two hours to allow you to scan the area for any possible hunters”.

Oda clicks his beak in a laughing sound of his race when his boss, Brossu, comes stomping into the bridge as only a louhos can do or is it just Brossu's way then comments offhandedly in stilted commonwealth “Ya got two responses to advert. Meeting place is at your favorite bar, Kepler's Hole, in about 2 hours” then with an ear twitch Oda comments “I guess your sure bet went bust”. Oda glances up from his work on his personal shield generator “Only got two confirms at the moment but I'm sure you will get more as the datanet boast there is 1.2 million inhabitants and transients here at anyone time”. Brossu Berkesto grunts and calls up his credit balance on the bridge monitor, "I was conned, plain and simple... that human was either a Heavy Worlder or a GenMod... or both!! I've never seen one hit to hard before...", shaking his head at the futility of it all Oda is already reaching for his PDA before the inevitable question comes. "Say, Oda old friend, I don't suppose you could loan me a few credits could you, I can't sit in The Hole without a drink, Kepler would have me out on my shell in no time!" Moments later Brossu leaves the Trash Can, his affectionate name for the old Mule that has served him well over the past few years, and heads to Kepler's Hole to see what scum of the universe are interested in his advert... Nator Ranx Reads the ad again and heads down to the worst bar on the station, Keplar's Hole, and hopes he does not run into his cousin. Genesis walks closely with Cyrus on her right as they walk the streets of the space station. "What should we do?" Cyrus asked her, "Our last job didn't pan out." Genesis only looked ahead "And who's fault is that?" she asked cooly. Cyrus could only grin "Hey, I said I was sorry. What did you expect me to do?" Genesis stopped in her tracks and looked at him "I expected you to act accordingly, but instead you let your...emotions get the better of you, and for that we got tossed out." Cyrus rubbed his head "She was hot, ok? How can someone who looks like that not expect to be bedded instantly?" Genesis, stonefaced as always, shook her head, "She was our boss!" Cyrus sighed "I said sorry! But that job sucked anyway. I am not selling myself out to be a glorified janitor." With that he ran up to catch her, but not before he stopped in his tracks at the advertisement pages "Hey, check this out." Genesis turned on her heel and stepped up and read the ad. A spacer looking for a crew. "Head to Kepler's Hole. Where is that?" Cyrus motioned towards the elevator "It's a seedy bar, known for it's upstanding clientele and impeccable service. Sounds right up our alley." Genesis sighed, "Not once did I expect to find myself in this situation, but here I am. We'll make it our business if we have to, we are desperate." With that the two headed off to Keplar's Hole. Rev heads down the path, passing the the squatter areas of the station. He kept an eye out for anyone following, but was confident that the path Vaina planned for him was safe. Just outside of Keplar's Hole, Rev scouts the area to ensure its security. When he is satisfied he heads into the bar whispering to Vaina, "Any information on the contact?" Brossu Berkesto settles into his favourite booth towards the back of Keplar's Hole and uses the tables centre console to order a drink, shortly afterwards he calls up the betting odds for a race he knows to be happening shortly. His fingers hover over the ‘place bet’ option for nearly a minute before withdrawing, with a heavy sigh like only a Louhos can he mutters to himself “Oda would have thanked me when that one came in, coulda doubled his money…” As his drink arrives Brossu looks around the seedy bar, it’s clientele a mixture of species but predominantly the lower end of each spectrum. He likes this place, one of the few in the station where his cursed racial memories don’t bother him so much. It’s hard to hold a grudge against humanity when the ones on show are so pathetic that they can’t be held accountable for the actions of their species but that’s just the problem with remembering your ancestors lives, not just knowing about it, learning about it or thinking about it… actually ‘remembering’ the past as if it happened to you! It certainly accounts for the fact that Louhos find it hard to trust humans even though the horrors of that time are long since past. Keplar approaches with his customary grin, each time it seems like less teeth than before are on show. His eye-patch and scarred visage testament to his days as a mercenary. “There’s been some in’trest in yer advert Brossu, that why yer ‘ere?” Despite actually liking this human, one he knows to have been heavily involved in a mission that rescued some stranded Louhos some years back, Brossu still only grunts his acknowledgement, his deep gravelly voice making the sound a rumble. “Well then, I’ll keep an eye out for strangers for yer and send ‘em over… get it Brossu… ‘an eye’ ‘cause it’s all I gots yer see… Ha… ‘see’… C’mon Brossu, I’ll get a smile outta you one o’these days…” with a final phlegm filled chuckle the old space dog saunters back to the bar leaving Brossu looking towards the door stoic as ever.

Lachesis walks along with her two sisters, mapping the station in her head as they walk along and trying to ignore the stream of babble coming from Clothos as they make their way to whatever dive bar her sister has arranged for them this time. She glances back in some annoyance as she can't help but see the rather heavy looking keg hoisted on the shoulder of her other sister Atropos. Lachesis knows that the weight really means nothing to her burlier sister but she still doesn't like to see her reduced to a beast of burden. Eventually the young woman comes to a stop, pointing to a sign stating the name of Kepler's Hole. "An apt name if ever to describe this... establishment." Clothos walks behind her sister, content that her wares are on the shoulder of one sister and the other is sure to find their destination. She is all smiles, "You see this station is pretty amazing. I mean the sheer size of it is impressive but the craftsmanship that went into created such a stable station is really something that can't be ignored. Of course the outer craftsmanship really has little to say with what goes on inside of the hull which I'm afraid to say is pretty much the nastiest station I think we've been in for quite some time, really, I'm pretty sure we're at the end of the universe. Not really sure if I'm able to sell what I need here or if I can even get a good price. You know, this is the last of what I have..." She is interrupted by her dark-haired sister pointing out their destination. "Well fantastic, lets see if we can't make something of the night!" Lachesis can only shake her head at her sister but leads the way into the bar and investigates the place. She can't help but wrinkle her nose at some of the smells. She directs her sisters over to one side of the bar so that they can observe for a little while as they'd planned. She puts a hand on Clothos' arm, "Sssh Cloey, try to be quiet for a change and lets see what the universe has in store for us tonight." Clothos just nods and is all smiles as she orders a drink and proceeds to busy her mouth with the imbibing of spirits. Lachesis keeps her attention on the rest of the room, even though it's apparent the three of them stand out like sore thumbs, particularly with Atropos standing guard over the silver keg. Brossu had just settled into his booth and started sipping his drink when 3 attractive, for humans, girls walk in to the crowded bar. What caught his attention is much they stick out. They do not look nor act as they belong to this type of crowd. The one girl that was carrying a silver keg looks like she should be in a fighting arena instead of lugging cargo around. A figure cutting a swath through the crowd is a being that Brossu recognizes instantly as the fighter he lost credits against. The three girls settled down at the bar and proceed to look about the crowded, filthy dive that claims to be an establishment that serves consumables. There are a mixture of races pressed together but Lachesis notices right off that humans are in the minority while Clothos spots an adorable outfit but it on a Qu’ari who is undulating nearby as it communicates with a Louhos. Atropos identifies about 6 nearby persons carrying concealed weapons in the few seconds she used to glance about upon entering the bar. As she continues to scan the room, she notes four professionals scattered about as well as another highly skilled combatant entering the dive. Rev moves into the bar and notices the crowd parts around him like small fish flowing around a shark. Instantly he spots a girl watching him briefly, she was quickly sizing him up, before continuing a quick glance about. Rev notices 4 professionals relaxing in the bar at their individual tables and how well they have the bar covered in their field of fire. He also notices 6 ill-concealed weapons on that many beings near the bar but no one is acting like they are going to use them. Vaina illuminates a Louhos sitting at the back of the bar in Rev's vision “That is the contact. One Brossu Berkesto, owner and operator of the mule voidjammer TRSHCN125596492 . He is a Louhos so caution is proscribed when meeting with him. This bar is fill primarily with his species. I count there is 49 patrons here which 30 are of his species. On a side note the bar is rated for only 25 patrons per station regulations D4 section 573 subsection 45252a. Do you wish for me to quote it?”. Genesis and Cyrus move through the crowded walkways and into a more open area where there are people of various species selling items or drinking or eating food, some of which she does not recognize nor want to, when Cyrus spots the flickering lights that spell Kepler's. The stench of people in various unwashed conditions waft over both of their noses. Genesis can see right off that the establishment is overcrowded but there are various species streaming in and out of it still. Nator works his way through the crowd into the open space where most of the establishments are located at only to see what some beings refer to as a space angel walking through the crowds. She appears to be a tall long legged human female that moves with grace. Her hair glistens in the poor flickering light as her clean porcelain looking skin causes her silky like clothing to slightly crease as she walks in an almost gliding manner through the throngs. Next to her is a human male that seems to be cut from the cloth of a rapscallion. Even his bionic prosthetic eye is burnished to an almost gleam that cries out for attention. Both of them are far more well dressed than this area calls for, Nator thinks to himself as he watches them walk towards Kepler's. Brossu Berkesto sits in his booth watching the door casually while sipping at his drink. Seeing three very out of place human females enter the bar he quickly surmises that they are here to see him "Typical…" he grunts to himself, "it would have to be humans!" Reaching for his PDA he quickly sends a message to Oda ~It's bloody humans, come quick, may need your help~ Right then another 'human' enters the bar and Brossu can't repress a growl as he recognises the ringer who knocked out the Louhos in his most recent gambling loss, remembering how dangerous this particular specimen is however he decides that survival should override his grudge in this instance, that doesn't stop him from scanning the area for potential weapons should things go too far. Seeing the way in which the brawler scans the room suggests to the astute Louhos that he is looking for someone or something, with one last heavy grunt Brossu drops his head into his huge hand… "Bloody humans!"

Genesis looks over the...."delicacies", or whatever they are in this forsaken hole they managed to find themselves in. The smells alone made her stomach turn inside out. "I wouldn't be caught dead trying any of this food." Cyrus smirked at her, "Good, considering most of it is prepared my non-humans. They'd sooner poison you than make sure you're well fed." They arrived on the doorstep of Keplar's. Cyrus took a deep breath in "Ahh....smells like home!" Genesis almost smirks, but quickly demolishes the idea, before she turns around and scans the area "We are being watched..." Cyrus only sighed "Of course we are, we are well dressed humans in a dive hole on a space station. I'd be worried if we were fitting in." He motioned to the door "Shall we m'lady?" Genesis rolled her eyes and entered the establishment and looked around, seeing various species. Of note, there were three human females that caught her eye, specifically because they seemed just as out of place as them. She also noticed a Louhos in the corner booth. Her readings indicated that the Louhos species did not like humans overmuch. She expected that on certain stations, they gave each other a wide berth or at least were cordial to each other,but on this particular station, she had a feeling courtesy went out the window. She continued inside with Cyrus on her side and walked up to the counter. Nator Ranx shakes his head as he watches the over-dressed pair enter Keplar’s and follows them in after checking to be sure his vibroblade is sheathed in it’s normal place. Upon entering, Nator looks around to see if he can tell just who placed the ad, recognizing Brossu from times when he had repaired the Louhos’ ship Nator mumbles, “Oh shit, not this asshole…” as he wanders over to the booth Brossu is occupying. Lachesis watches as the other humans enter the bar and can't help but wonder what brings them down to a place like this. Her and her sisters obviously had no money and had hopped from station to station hitching rides and had that sort of look. They fit in. The new humans certainly didn't look like that type. The dark-haired sister nudges Clothos, "Hey Cloey, what do you think of that? I think they are here for something important don't you?" Clothos breaks away from her conversation with a louhos nearby and her eye catches what Lachesis was talking about. Her grin broadens and she winks, "I think we might have found something Sis!" She taps Atropos' arm and uses the keg as a step-stool to rise up above the crowd and begins waving emphatically at Genesis and Cyrus. Genesis notices the weird looking girl wave at someone. She turns to look back, seeing no one respond to the girl's waves. "I think that girl is calling us." Cyrus looks over to see her and her two friends with her with a sly grin, "Ah yes, seems they saw me enter. Can't say I'm surprised." As he was speaking, Genesis was already heading towards them. Cyrus sprinted to catch up. Once he got there, he leaned on the counters and eyed the girls. "Well heloooooo ladies! Name's Cyrus Axion, a pleasure to see such fine women in here." Genesis coughs and folds her arms "Weird seeing three young girls in such an establishment. Surely there are better places to...what's the phrase...hang out in.." Clothos turns into all smiles as she catches the attention of the most attractive human male she's seen in quite some time. She knows her own looks are better than average, maybe not up to her dark-haired sister but different strokes for different folks. She lets this run through her head before resting her hand on Cyrus' that is sitting on the bar, "Oh you are just too cute! My name is Clothos but everyone calls me Cloey. Gotta say, the pleasure is all mine good-looking!" Lachesis tries valiantly to ignore her sister's flirting and even though she's attracted to Cyrus, she focuses her attention on Genesis, thinking she is likely the brains of the pair. "Not so weird when those three young girls are looking for work. See we aren't exactly new to stations and find places like this are usually good areas to find a ship." She gives a friendly smile as she looks back at her two sisters. Clothos' attention is all over Cyrus, while Atropos seems oblivious to the conversation and keeps watching the bar. Lachesis shrugs at Genesis, "What brings someone so immaculate as you to a place like this? You don't really look like the type to slum it around here." Rev looks curiously at the girl and grins. His curiosity gets the best of him and he tests the attentions of the mysterious girl by reaching for his vibro blade as he was looking directly at her at and turning his body towards her the moment her gaze returns to him. At the last second he makes it look like he was just adjusting it and turns his body again towards Brossu, utilizing his masked visor and suits sensor to keep an eye on her to study her reactions. Others would think he was just fixing it, while the girl would get a suspicion of something else. He replies to Vaina, “Sorry about that Vaina, my professional competitiveness took over. Delay the report on this clear violation but keep a record of the scan for the future, I’ll have to think about it.” As he surveys the bar, Rev also takes off his helmet, he fixes his hair a bit and looks a bit annoyed. He looked a bit uneasy at those getting out of his path, adjusting his shoulders he puts on a fake smile. Walking towards the contact he also speaks with his A.I. “Vaina, could you keep an eye on those girls for me. Experience tells me they might cause some problems in the near future, give me a heads up if they do. Although the same could be said for me.” To the mysterious girl again he gives an apologetic shrug with obvious no ill intention, he does the same for any other patrons who were made nervous by his previous action. It is soon replaced by fake smile that could be miss construed for a cocky grin. As he approaches Brossu, visual data of culturally accepted greetings for a Louhos appear provided by Vaina, Rev follows the instructions and does his best to give a proper greeting. Holding his helmet his side, “I’m here about your advert, my name is Rev a security specialist.”

Nator Ranx watches the exchanges between the the ladies and the pretty boy as he slides into Brossu's booth. Turning to Brossu Nate states, "I hear you're lookin for a spacer crew, I have some unique talents that you may just find useful." Genesis nods "You are correct. We don't "slum" as you call it, but we recently found ourselves out of the job thanks to....." she looks at Cyrus as he makes googly eyes at the one female who seems interested in him "Well no matter. We saw an ad placed for a crew and was told to come here, so here we are." Cyrus, paying no mind to the talk, continues to flirt "To hear such words from a beautiful woman is...it's glorious." Genesis could feel herself eye rolling, instead she focused on the girl talking "I would say I find it odd that three young girls would want work on a ship, but it appears as though you aren't ordinary girls. So I believe we are looking for the same thing." Atropos keeps her gaze on the crowd but registers the aggressive stance of the other human, the shift in her direction and the reach for a weapon. The skilled fighter shifts her own body towards the man but in such a subtle fashion that anyone not looking for a tell would likely think she is just shifting her weight. She doesn't appear to draw a weapon or seem to tense, but she appears ready to defend against any aggressive movement. Lachesis nods to Genesis, "Well then, mind if we tag along. We came here just thinking we might get lucky but maybe we could join on with whatever crew you guys are looking to sign up with. Maybe we can even join up our cause with yours and add a little weight to a ship offering. Might not look it, but we have some marketable skills." Clothos blushes, taking a few moments to order yet another drink. "So you and your friend, you like brother and sister? She's not gonna get mad at us talking is she cause man, I've totally dealt with that before and so not cool. You're totally cute, but not that cute..." She trails off but does so with a playful grin. Genesis nods "That seem fine. I don't doubt your usefulness. So who do we need to speak to?" she glances around the room and spots the corner booth, now occupied with three individuals. She points to them "I am guessing over there." Cyrus, on the other hand, smiles at Cloey "Her? Naw, she's like my sister. I wouldn't want to get with that anyway. She's kind of a bit-" before he could finish, Genesis had him by the back of his hair and pulled towards her "Before you finish that word, we are going to go towards those men and sing up for the job. You can flirt later." Lachesis and Clothos share a grin, Clothos blushing again at the comment for Cyrus. As the other two humans begin to walk away, Lachesis turns to her two sisters, "You two stay here, I'm going to go see if we can't get signed up on this ship. I think Cloey is all in, what about you Atty, would you be fine with that?" The visored sister gives a slight nod but keeps running through her scan of the room. Cloey gives Lachesis a kiss on the cheek and then a slap on butt as the asian sister moves to catch up with Genesis and Cyrus. Clothos orders another drink and then proceeds to sit on the keg and enjoy it.

Brossu Berkesto watches the various humans interact to give him a good indication of the type of characters he was likely to deal with. There seemed to be a mixture of attitudes, from super serious to almost flippant but none of that mattered to the profit driven Louhos although it could make for an interesting voyage. Forcing himself to repress an ancestral memory of slavery and torture but unable to stop himself from clenching his fists in anger he finds himself pleasantly surprised when the first human greets him in a manner he thought was only used by his people, this one has promise already it seems. Rev reveals himself to be a security specialist, not a high priority crew member but certainly useful in the pirate riddled rift so Brossu waves him to take a seat while acknowledging the next human approaching, one who reminded him weirdly enough of his friend and bodyguard Oda, probably down the his choice of outfit, very Nibiran in effect ~Thinking of Oda, where is he, humans make my teeth hurt!~ Hearing the humans voice Brossu suddenly remembers why this one looks so familiar, he had worked on the Trash Can one time and tried to rip him off with the price, although the work he did was perfect... still Brossu wouldn't be half the Louhos he was without having to strike a deal even on flawless work. Waving him to take a seat next to Rev (who seems very uncomfortable having someone sat in such close proximity) he turns to the others approaching and waves them to the table as well. A better turn out than he could have hoped for such a vague advert. Brossu Berkesto waits for the chattier members of the group to quiet down before uttering the first words since being approached: "You are like space transports, I wait ages for one and several of you turn up at once! Well, I suppose it cuts down on repeating myself. I am Brossu Berkesto, Merchant Captain of the Trash Can, a modest but effective vessel. She may not be much but she gets the job done and the current job is a good lead on some valuable salvage in the rift." Looking to make sure he has everyones attention he continues, "I'm looking for a crew that will work hard, not play around, you need to know what you are doing and do it well. This is a salvage operation, a potentially dangerous salvage operation at that. Jeopardising the mission will jeopardise the crew and most importantly jeopardise my profits." Taking a deep breath, which for the barrel chested Louhos sounds more like a low rumbling growl he breaches the part of the contract he was dreading, pay: "I can't pay you, it is that simple. Due to recent credit-flow issues (Brossu can't avoid turning a glare Rev's way at this point) all I can offer you is an equal share of the profits, I have my pilot Oda already on board which along with the rest of you, assuming you make the grade, makes nine of us... to my reckoning we split any profit ten ways with me taking the extra share for supplying the ship, and the intel. This is non-negotiable. Now you tell me why you want to do this and what you can contribute...?" Genesis rolls up to the table with Cyrus in tow and listen's to Brossu's message. After he allows for the group to talk she speaks up first, one because she wanted to show professionalism and determination, and on the other hand they needed the job and the possible money. "My name is Genesis and this is Cyrus. We've been traveling together for....a few months. I won't lie and say I'm an expert on all things space travel and salvage as I've only just begun exploring the wide verses of space,but we are skilled." Cyrus speaks up now "Aye, I am good with things that shoot. I got my trusty pistol with me, but if you got guns on the hunk of junk you cal la ship, I can man 'em." he points to Genesis "This lady, however, has her own personal army. Nanobots by the shit-load in her system. Allows her to form any tool she deems necessary, plus she is good at hand to hand fighting as well as using a gun. Plus look at her" he waits a moment for everyone to look "She's hot." Genesis doesn't show emotion after he talks instead she focuses on Brossu "I may be new, but I promise to do whatever job given to me. I can fight, I can run reconnaissance, I can even be diplomatic. Whatever the need is I will fulfill it to perfection." Nator Ranx turns to Brossu and tells him, "I don’t know how much you heard about the No-Li colony fiasco, but I am the one who brought that flying pig of a colony ship back. Whoever decided colony ships would not be armed has some explaining to do.” Nator grabs a whisky off the tray of a passing waitress and downs it. “Three times the pirates holed our hull and boarded us, three times I used their ships as patches and their flesh and blood as sealant!” looking around the table Nate sizes up the rest of the applicants and returns his attention to Brossu, “Not only can I fly, and fight, I can also fix damn near anything. I can work in anything from zero to three gees and not be bothered. I can even tell you what things are worth. Any question?” As Brossu, a Louhos, sits with his back to the wall and the humans surround him at the table, Oda who is a nibirans comes scuttling up with an oversized personal shield generator that looks to have been cobbled together from left over scrap strapped on his back “Hey Boss” then worms his way into the mix as only a nibiran can. Oda, who's dressed in various scraps of clothing and smells of something thought to have been found in the refuse chute pipes, flicks a tattered right ear at Nator's comment. “I'd eard about tat bit and” said in a sharp high pitch chittering speech as he twists towards Brossu “Boss, got us a gig line up. Simple cargo run, half pay on pickup, rest pay on delivery. Two week run” then his voice drops down to a softer tone that could barely be heard past the table “Rumor is that a hull was spotted near our delivery point. I plotted our path near there so we could sniff around with minimum effort or fuel use”. Oda twitches his whiskers as he looks over the humans then speaks towards Brossu “Boss this could be a good run but with so many mouths to feed, it is going to be slim on profits unless we shoot for the rumor. I only expected a few mouths not a whole pack clan of humans.” As Oda utters those words, sounds of an argument is heard just before the sizzling sounds of pulsers being shot rip through the stale air. Screams and yelling along with the rush of bodies scrambling for cover bring chaos into the bar. Within seconds it is over and there is 4 beings laying dead on the floor with holes burnt through them. There is two Humans, a Druski, and a Qu'ari who is just a bubbling pile of burnt silcon ooze. All have the dress of mercs and appear to have taken on a bounty that knew how to fight back. Sounds of alarms are heard echoing throughout the area and many of the bar's patrons are leaving rapidly for they know the station's security is on the way.

Rev before the shots had sent over his résumé to Brossu, which would have included a two page list of conflicts he had participated in vague terms listing the type of location, rough numbers of allies and enemies, and results of each battle. Listed as his previous employment was the title of security officer for a Nibiran scavenger vessel. Skills and talents section would have been riddled with different uses of pulse weapons, styles of vibro blades, breaching tactics, CQC techniques, and at the very end “unique genetic enhancement”. Feeling a bit uncomfortable with the now large crowd and having little interest in the other’s bragging about their experience, he requested Vaina to bring up their previous game of chess. A virtual board would have appeared in his mind, he never managed to beat Vaina but it made for a good mental exercise. He noticed Oda come in but kept his focus on the game, he was getting a bit frustrated with the game when the sound of a pulse rifle went off. His mutated blood is set ablaze as his reflexes and instincts take over (Mutation-I. R. 12). He jumps out of his seat over the heads of the others, less graceful but with more force like a beast. In the air he puts his helmet on, and as he lands he takes out his knife. Vaina and Rev exchange words to come up with a strategy - , “Objective?”, “Eliminate threat.” “Deadly force?” “No, target plus owner may lead to a way out.” “Assistance?” “Backtrack.” “Affirmative.” As Rev survey’s the bar moving towards the bodies keeping his fist and vibro blade at the ready, Vaina attempts to use the injuries on the bodies to determine where the shots came from. Rev looks for one of the armed professionals he identified before, theorizing they are the most likely culprits. Brossu Berkesto reacts on instinct at the first signs of trouble, using his powerful shoulders he wrenches the table from the floor and shoves it over to act as a shield against stray pulse fire. Waving the assembled humans down into cover alongside him Brossu is stunned to see the one who had identified himself as 'Rev' sails over the heads of those between him and the relative freedom of the barroom! Turning his shell covered back to the table to maximise its defensive qualities he signals to Oda to guard the flank with his personal shield, seeing his trusted body guard and friend nod in acknowledgement he points to the pulse pistol gripped in one of the Nibiran's clawed hands and gives a subtle shake of his head, a signal Oda would understand as 'Only shoot to kill if necessary, this isn't out fight... I hope!' Brossu then begins to scan his surroundings for a potential weapon should the fight end up getting too close for comfort. Genesis overhears the screams as the group goes over their resumes, quickly springing up to take a view at the people attacking. Cyrus gets up too and draws his pistol "Can never have a quiet day. Ever!" Cyrus quickly ducks behind the counter of the bar and prepares to unleash hell on the attackers. Genesis stands her ground and begins to formulate a plan with her nanobots depending on the situation. "First priority should be to prevent more civilian casualties. I highly suggest you all prepare for battle or find a place to hide." she said with an oddly calm voice. Nator Ranx looks over to where the bodies have hit the floor, sees that it's pretty much under control, shrugs and grabs the closest beer on the table as it is getting tipped over. Looking to Brossu, Nate takes a drink of beer and says, "This is one of the main reasons I tend to avoid this place." Lachesis doesn't seem terribly put out by the sudden explosion of movement and violence, but she doesn't exactly seem all that happy about it either. She looks nervously back at her sisters, to see them begin moving. She turns her attention back to Brossu and speaks quickly over the rising tumult, "You hire me, you hire my two sisters as well. One is good at killing, the other is an engineer that has spent most her life developing prototype engines and knows mostly everything cutting edge. You have a science problem, I'm about as good a person to ask as any. What you won't get is hassle, we just want a fair cut and a place on a ship that might offer a steady stream of jobs, not just one time deals. If that sounds good to you, send me your berth info. I'd rather not be here for all this." Lachesis tosses a data card down on the table, takes one last look to make sure that Brossu is the one picking it up and then she slinks into the crowd moving for the exit to meet up with her sisters. Clothos is at the bar on a drink she's lost count of as the pulsers erupt around her. She leans back in her seat, exclaiming rather loudly, "Holy Shit!" and proceeds to fall off her seat into an eruption of laughter. She isn't down long before she feels an iron tight grip on her shirt pulling her away from the bar. Clothos manages to stand even as she's being dragged (an almost practiced effort) and lets Atropos lead her through the crowd and towards the door.

Atropos reacts before the pulsers go off. Her scanning of the crowd had already seen the developing conflict and she anticipated the escalation of violence. Her first priorities were her sisters. Seeing Clothos closer by, she almost lets out a sigh as the Cloey ends up making a fool of herself but she fights the urge, smothering it with a cold professionalism. Pushing past one nearby patron, she gets a firm hold of Cloey's shirt and begins dragging her away from the epicenter of the violence. Once out of the immediate fray, her eyes stray to Lachesis who appears to still be at the table with their prospective job opportunity. The trained fighter notes the look from her smarter sister and reacts in turn. With her visor on full scan for trouble, she leads Clothos towards the exit, taking a round-about route around the edge of the room and having the presence of mind to scoop up the hefty metal keg in the process. As the sounds of the pulsers fade, the jostling of the crowd scrambling to move away from the bodies on the floor with smoking holes in them, the three sisters were already on the move as Atropos is dragging one of them towards the back exit as the other is working her way through the crowd but it was clogged with people pushing to get out and the main entrance was filled with security trying to get in as patrons are trying to leave. Rev was moving into the crowd to assess any threats but Vaina did a quick digital sweep of Rev's visual input and spotted the 4 professionals are already out the of the bar and behind the station security line. Brossu's flip of the table was a knee jerk reaction to the events as was Oda's shield generator being flipped on but it is Nantor's causal attitude that catches Brossu's attention. Genesis move to stand in front of the group and present a perfect target also is noticed by Brossu but it is the fact that Cyrus pulls an illegal weapon with the security forces descending upon the bar catches his attention the most. With the alarms warbling security forces cordon off the front entrance of Keplar's bar then start to process the crowd through their lines. Genesis and Rev notices this first as they are nearer the front that security is taking retinal scans, scanning ID cards, and running visual recognition software in a small portable setup to one side of the front. There is 5 security handling crowd control and funneling everyone through the inspection checkpoints and two security at the portable setup. The bar crowd is slowly thinning but Brossu knows that Keplar has a secret bolt hole in his back office and notices that Keplar is not to be seen anywhere behind the bar where he is normally at. Atropos spots through the open back exit more security that are processing the patrons through a security check point. The security are scanning ID cards, taking retinal scans, and running visual recognition software in a portable setup just behind the guards at the exit door. /desc Cloey and Lachesis notice the crowd being slowed down at the back exit. Nator finishes his beer and notices how thin the crowd has gotten but is apparently not worried since he is here legally and has done nothing illegal or so he hopes the security forces thinks. Brossu notices the brief flashes of panic in the eyes of a few of the prospective crew members, tying that, and the intriguing but obviously illegal pistol held by Cyrus, to the incoming security checks he makes a quick decision and turns to Oda "Take any of these lot who want to avoid that patrol out via Keplar's office and back to the ship, use all those Nibiran 'rat runs' that you deny exist to get there discreetly and wait there for my return. Begin the refuel and restock procedures and get clearance to launch prepared, I think we've found our crew, if only for the entertainment value." Waving his friend away he rights the table again, shrugs apologetically to Nator who still sits sipping a drink in the booth looking for all the worlds like nothing has changed. Calling up a holographic logic game he raises an eye ridge at Nator suggesting that they have a game while they await the security check, as far as he is concerned they seem to the only two with nothing to fear… certainly an interesting concept since he has effectively just hired potentially wanted humans. As he makes his first move in the game Brossu is already thinking of the potential profit implications ~Are these humans worth anything, if so how much, will they be worth more to me as crew or will it prove to be more trouble than it is worth keeping them alive/free~

Rev is surprised to see such a quick security response, he looks a bit impressed. He lowers his guard a bit seeing no immediate danger, takes a look back at the upturned table. With a surprised look he’s a bit shocked to see not everyone has a portable shield. He notices the more relaxed members of the group and starts to look a bit jealous under his mask. Turning to Cyrus who has his weapon out, “I would recommend putting that a way, there is a possibility that you will be mistaken for someone responsible for the shooting. I find that the average security enforcer is more interested in closing a situation rather than getting it right.” He looks around, speaking with his A.I., “Well….this isn’t good...Vaina take a recording of the surroundings as best you can for evidence of the assault. Who ever has inconvenienced me this day….might cause more problems in the future……” A little red dot appears in the lower corner of his vision as Rev looks around for clues to what happened and takes a moment to make sure he has recorded the faces of the dead. He obviously starts to look a bit uncomfortable about the situation. As Rev quietly follows Oda after Brossu asked him to head through the secret door, he turns to the others staying and gives them a nod as he departs saying, “Let me know if you require my services.” As he walks a thought comes to his mind, to his A.I.“Vaina could you please try to steal the data on any security in the bar, then delete it off their database. Rather not have my face alerted to the higher ups here, also would like to see if a chance for some extra credits are to be had. Hoping those mercenaries missed out on a bounty, possible chance to get some revenge and credits for a fake ID. If not thats fine, thanks for the hard work.” A smiley face comes up where the red dot was and disappears. Genesis notes the change in security after the threat. She definitely didn't want to be recognized, she isn't aware that if she's scanned if that would ping the school. Cyrus peeks his head up and frowns "Damn, I wanted to shoot someone." He puts his pistol away and looks at Rev and Brossu "All right, lead on then. The missus and I will follow." Sure as he said it Genesis was already following the others quickly. Cyrus slowly behind, every so often popping his head back to check if anyone other than the new "crew" is following them. Nator Ranx studies the board and makes a counter to Brossu's opening. Addressing the Louhos Nator says, "So, why are we hanging around here when we can be readying the ship for launch?" Brossu Berkesto gives Nator a slow smile as he makes a move designed to open up the human's defences ready for a strike at the heart of his fleet. "Simple really, on the same day, almost the same minute, I take on a new crew there is a firefight in my local followed by the most rapid security response i've ever seen on this station. I for one have nothing to hide and would very much like to see what the security have to say on the events here today." Leaning back in the booth and wriggling a bit to get his shell comfortable Brossu continues "Besides, nothing says suspicious more than being seen somewhere where things like this have occurred and then requesting clearance to leave the station immediately after..." waving his large hand at the carnage he explains "this, wasn't our doing. This, was nothing to do with us. We have nothing to hide and I intend to make sure that is well known before we leave. Call it hiding in plain sight if you will... Nator... was it?" Nator Ranx Slides a ship from the "rear" edge of his fleet to cover the ship Brossu just moved to protect his flagship from attack. "That makes perfect sense to me." Nator replies after making his move. Smiling at the Louhos Nator continues. "Yup, it's Nator but most people call me Nate. I'm wondering just who these amateurs tried to hassle." Brossu Berkesto shrugs, "As long as it doesn't affect business I don't want anything to do with it, humans kill humans just like they kill or enslave anyone else they feel like..." Raising an eye ridge yet again at this surprising human's move he carefully selects one of his more offensive pieces, without moving it he releases it again with a heavy sigh ~this will take some more thought, he thinks to himself as he continues~ "Either way, we've got a job to do... I know you can do yours, that hull weld you did is immaculate. The rest of that rabble seemed awful jumpy to me but I could tell that people that wired are either capable or desperate, both qualities I can use in my crew." Finally selecting a more defensive stance ~lets see what this human is made of~ Brossu makes his move and settles back into the booth again eyeing 'Nate' up and down... "You favour Nibiran dress I see, that speaks well of you... Oda should be clear by now by my reckoning." He finishes speaking seeing that the security patrol is nearly to them and calls up his ID for inspection. Oda leads the ragtag group behind him as scurries through the bolt hole in the back office and down into the maintenance shafts of the station. Speaking in clipped english that indicates a learning of the language from an old virtual language program, Oda says “We go down two levels, over 3 tunnels, up 6 levels then we mix with people. We go to jammer and wait for boss. If not agree, you go your way” then leads the way down into the winding guts of the station where in the distance other nibirans are seen scurrying about. While the smell in the maintenance is not overly strong, it is unpleasant to say the least. It takes over an hour of traveling to reach the ship while along the way, the group was given occasional odd looks from various people moving about their own business. Security clears the front half of Kelpler's bar and is working on the rest. A few security guards are standing near the bodies as medical techies scoop the dead up and bag them before transporting them away. Two guards saunter over to the table where Brossu and Nator are still sitting to ask a few questions. The higher ranked one speaks up with a old world consortium accent “What is your business here? Did you know those 4? Did you see who shot them?” Brossu Berkesto hands over his ID to the junior officer and addresses the senior one directly, "My friend and I were enjoying a quiet drink and a game..." he waves at the board to indicate the in-progress game "when the incident occurred, I won't call it a fight as it was over in seconds but it looked to me like a hit job gone wrong." Seeing the medical teams only focussing on the obvious casualties he waves a heavy hand in the direction of the bar "There was a Qu'ari over there as well, not a lot left but might help your investigation. I'm guessing you want us out of the way now right? Although, if you don't mind my asking, is there anything we should be worried about... your crew got here awful quick so i'm worried about potential unrest in the area, don't want to get caught up in anymore violence before we get back to our ship?" Vaina brings up images in the lower corner of Rev's vision while speaking to his inner ear "Those four bodies were registered bounty hunters on the hunt for one Reginald Bellfont who goes by the moniker of the Stardust kid. Bellfont has a 100k cred bounty from a corp". Continuing with the inner monolog "I could not steal the data due to the encryption but I was able to cause a cascade failure in their data storage. It did cause an alert to be posted about a hacking attempt but it is not traceable to you". Atropos sees Lachesis come to a stop before getting to the doors of the establishment. The speed of the security lockdown was surprising, almost as though they had expected some sort of conflict and were standing by to make their move. The trained assassin takes note of the formation used by the security team, the redundancies to keep individuals from escaping from all known exits. Her visor has kept a monitor on those individuals that Sis had met with earlier and something caught her attention. Focusing on that display, she can't hear Brossu speaking but she reads his lips (alien though they are) and then leans in close to Sis while still keeping a hand on drunken Cloey, "Sis, there is a secret exit your contact has identified, we're to follow the one known as Oda." She holds up her arm, the nanotech in her suit arm displaying a quick picture of Oda that only briefly flashes, long enough for Sis to get a look.

Lachesis is trying her hardest not to look concerned as security has locked the bar down. They have nothing criminal on their history but any sort of scan would show up in a log, that log would likely be scanned by the corporation on some sort of search program and then their location would be blown which would not be good seeing as how this was the last place they could reasonably run. She notices Atty leaning in and gives her more militant sister her full attention, relying on her skills at this time. She takes note of the picture, then turns to look at the bar and spots the nibiran and leads her sisters back through the mass. She gives a brief nod to Oda and a look over to the table with Brossu to remind him she had met with his boss earlier and then follows into the back office and further into the maintenance shafts. She wrinkles her nose at the smell but more of a force of habit, it was no worse than some other conditions she and her sisters had been in over the past several months. She's just happy to have gotten out of the bar without being scanned by security. Getting to the ship finally, she glances at it and then smiles at her sisters, "Looks like we've got employment again, at least for a little while." Rev has a big grin on his face, to Vaina, “Great work as always.” After a short time in the tunnels, he looks around at the group. Beginning to stretch, he speaks out loud, “Oda, something's come up. Need to take care of something, let me know if I have the job.” Rev gets out of the tunnels, with unnatural speed not waiting for a response, once they are a safe distance away from the bar. Using maps brought up by Vaina and his own knowledge of the direction the professionals were heading and of the more discrete parts of the station, he begins his chase for the kid by formulating a search area. To Vaina, “This Stardust Kid might have a disguise due to the fact that they are doing retinal scans. If he’s the one who killed those four, he’s most likely was one of the professionals I marked at the bar. Keep an eye out for any of them and for signs of a recently fired pulse weapon. Third search parameter might be signs of surgery or disguise. Might be why the Qu’ari was there, might help to mimic their sight. Don’t rule out the possibility he doesn’t have the disguise, those mercs just might be really bad. Hopefully there are enough search parameters to find this Kid..... It has been a while Vaina, but looks like we are doing an old fashioned hunt!” Using his enhanced body, he quickly moves throughout the station towards where he and Vaina believe the professionals were heading, from there he quickly searches the area using his experience as a soldier to move throughout the station in a organized and efficient manner. He moves quickly using his own eyes to search for signs of his target, and allowing Vaina to do their own thing scanning the crowds or various people. Nator Ranx Looks at the Security Officer and says, "I was just enjoying a drink and a game when the ruckus started, I have no idea who or what was involved but it's damned annoying that things like this disturbance have you hassling an honest mechanic." as he tosses his ID on the table. Nator Ranx returns his attention to the board and brings a quick strike fighter into the midst of Brossu's fleet. The senior officer who has not identified himself comments to Brossu while scanning the area distractedly “We received an anonymous tip that the Stardust kid was spotted in this area” then focuses on Brossu while pulling off a small clear sheet with a persons picture on it from a printer on his wrist then hands it to Brossu “This is the last known image of the kid. If you have any information leading to the capture of this person of interest, please relay it to the security department. There is a 1000 credit payout if the information supplied leads to the capture and arrest of the wanted person”. The sheet is a small corporate issued wanted poster of a young human male that is about 18yrs old. The charges listed involve anything from corporate espionage to armed assault to aggravated theft. The bounty listed is at 100k credits. The three sisters are lead into the ship and given berths in a room all to themselves. While the ship appears to rather roomy, most of the rooms are loaded with a wide variety of containers, some are sealed while others are open and the contents appear to have been used some. The sterile air burns Cloey's nose at first but she adjusts to it while Atty looks about the room for possible items to use for defense if needed. Oda is talking to Lachesis over by the door. In stilted Consortium speech, Oda says “Your room now. Lock good.” and points at the keypad then gestures down the hallway “Group room, food ate there, games played there, everyone gathers there when Boss wants to say to us all. Me go and get ship prepped. You “gestures at the three of them “no go on bridge till Boss says ok. Best stay here till he speaks otherwise” then Oda leaves the room and scurries off down the corridor. As Rev moves through the crowds growing as he goes up through the station to the more populated areas Vaina whispers in his ear “Rev dear, I was able to pull some footage off Kepler's security recorder before it was erased by someone else. The being called the stardust kid did not shoot the mercs. It was one of the professionals“. She brings up an image floating in Rev's vision “This is Thomas Blackmore, a registered recruiter from the Tiki-tiki corporation, and he was the one that shot the four bounty hunters”. Vaina brings up a new image of a young human male who is about 18 yrs old. “This is the last known image of the person known as the Stardust Kid. He has a corporate wanted sheet that lists a wide range of charges that start off with corporate espionage to armed assault to aggravated theft. The bounty listed is at 100k credits”. She brings up the images of the other 3 professionals “Each of those are registered recruiters from other corporations. It would appear they were all after the Stardust Kid for some reason”. Vaina speaks up after a few moments of silence “Internal security sensors are rather hard to crack”. The junior officer retrieves the ID and gives it a quick scan before returning it to Nator while the senior officer looks at him “Mr Ranx, we have a file about you. Nothing currently active but it has been noted that you have been involved in work that has merited the attention of security before. All I have to say is that we will be keeping a close watch on you and your activities” then leans over while covering his mic with one hand “Keep your left up otherwise the next opponent will take your head clean off” then straightens before walking away. Vaina pops up a ghostly map with a gold dot and a red dot that twinkles "Just spotted him in corridor 6a of dock arm 5. He is heading for a ship that is registered to the Tiki-tiki corporation and Blackmore is escorted him". Genesis and Cyrus follow the group through the various maintenance shafts while trying not to be nausated. She notices various nibirans moving around freely in the various corridors even though it is known they shouldn't be there or be tripping security sensors but reaching out her nano enhanced senses tells her that the sensors are disabled. While traveling through the populated area Genesis's nanos alert her to another nano veil moving nearby but it fades away before she could locate who or what it was. Genesis and Cyrus upon reaching the jammer notices that it is a tired looking mule voidjammer but Oda leads all of them in and after showing the three sisters to their room, he leads them to another nearby room that is almost the same. There are three bunks and a table along with builtin drawers. Oda speaks in stilted Consortium “You sleep here, eat food down corridor. Will get you all when Boss gets here. I go get ship ready to launch”.

Genesis starts to wonder what is going on in the station. Her nanos perked her up to a nanoveil, but in order to catch up with Oda, she couldn't place where it was coming from. Cyrus notices her gaze "What?" he asks her. "There's a nanoveil somewhere back there and the sensors are disabled. Someone doesn't want to be seen." As they enter the ship and get to their designated room Cyrus plops on one of the beds and sighs "Not the best ship for doing work, but it's a tough bird. It'll get the job done." Genesis remains standing, pondering "Why were the sensors disabled? Did it have something to do with the attack on the bar?" Cyrus rolls his eyes "What does it matter, we'll be off this thing shortly. It's Security's problem now." Genesis, however, doesn't like that, instead she paces the room, thinking about that nanoveil. The sisters are led to their shared room and are left there with instructions to pretty much just wait around as the nibiran leads the other humans off to their room. Lachesis moves over to the desk, opening up the drawers and getting a feel for the space even as Clothos gives a squeal and runs over to the pair of bunks that are stacked on top of each other while yelling out, "Dibs on top!" She struggles a bit but eventually manages to lift her intoxicated self up into the top bunk and lays down, going quiet as she almost immediately falls asleep. Atropos gives a brief frown at the space and at the open door behind her. Her inherent need for a secure space struggling with her understanding of just what she can do to make the place more secure. Eventually she pulls the single bunk over to the far side of the room and pushes it against the wall before sitting on it. From her vantage point she can see the desk, the stacked bunks and the door. Somewhat more satisfied she just nods. Lachesis sits down at the desk, opening the drawers just to get a feel for the space. She starts mumbling to herself, somewhat oblivious to the actions of her other sisters. Reaching into a pouch she pulls out a homemade paper notebook, somewhat of an oddity in the age of high-tech pads, and starts to jot some notes down to herself, "Multidimensional cabin... create a tesseract that replicates the current space when viewed externally as a four dimensional space but when entered it unfolds into a three dimensional space and increases in interior size... bigger on the inside..." Her mumbling becomes less coherent as she starts chewing on a tuft of hair while writing equations and drawing theoretical diagrams in her book. Brossu Berkesto drains his drink and makes one last move, one that would effectively put the game into a stalemate and therefore moot the whole endeavour, a purely diplomatic move since his alternative was a fleet shattering move that could well have coloured his new acquaintances opinion of him. Starting to get up he mutters to Nator "Time we were heading back I reckon, let these fine folk get on with the cleanup and evidence gathering..." then in a lower voice, almost an inaudible rumble, felt rather than heard, "besides, when the reward for info is only a hundredth of the actual bounty I'd like to see if any of Oda's contacts might be able to supply us with something that might net us the full amount!" Brossu strides out of the bar without waiting to see if the human follows or not, having effectively hired the motley crew he'd just met it was up to them to be present in time for launch otherwise it would just be more credits in the Louhos' account. As he heads towards the docks he muses to himself ~Hmm, bounties aren't really my thing but for 100k credits I'm not one to say no, especially since a handful of those new crew members looked pretty adept at that sort of thing... why not...~ Nator Ranx gives a quick glance at the board and suicides the fighter into Brossu's flagship. "Interesting move you made there." Draining his bottle, and standing up Nate tells the Louhos "Lead on boss. I know it's just a game, but when I play or fight, my goal is to win.." Rev begins sprinting to a point where he can ambush the moving dots. With a grin he smiles, “A corporate recruiter? Don’t like corporations much so don’t really care, a bit odd but need the credits so….unless you have any more info on the situation, I’m going to do my thing.” Continues to run down the corridors with unnatural speed, his enhanced reflexes allowing him to avoid obstacles. Genesis: , after a few minutes, stops pacing and sighs "I'm going to take a look around the ship." Cyrus gets up from his lazy, relaxed position "Um..as much as I am about breaking rules and doing things we aren't supposed to, I think that...guy means business. We should stay here until we're told otherwise." Genesis shakes her head "Then he can fire me. I'm not about to go with someone I don't trust without trust seeing what they are about. I can get that by looking at his ship." Without another word Genesis leaves her room and begins her search of the ship. As time goes by, sounds of the ship being loaded with cargo echo throughout the corridors. Lachesis being bored quickly pulls up the schematic layout of the jammer from being a rather simple encrypted firewall. Cloey starts talking in her drunken sleep while Atropos sits quietly watching the doorway. Her visor rotating through various settings before settling on the high end of the spectrum and watches the other two new people through the walls next to their room. Genesis quietly pads down the corridor and finds at the end an access tube that leads up and down. Mentally flipping a coin, she decides to go up till she reaches the next access portal which lets her out onto the bridge. Laid out in front of her were all the bridge instruments including what looks to be the captains area with a simple computer interface. Genesis quickly and efficiently cracks the jammers database and is able to look over the last 6 months of logs which are mostly cargo runs with occasional salvage pickup. She finds a file that contains what Brossu would like to have either built into the current ship or get a another jammer to build upon. Brossu leads the way through the more populated areas of the station to the docking arm when his comm beeps on his arm and Oda's holographic appears over the unit. Speaking in Louhosian, Oda states “Loading of cargo is almost done. The one known as Rev left on his own but stated he would be here before lift off. Trashcans computer has been hacked twice by your new crew. Nothing important as that is in a detached database like I told you it needed to be. You might want to get back here as soon as possible before they get bored and start tearing the Can apart. Nator finds it is interesting to follow the Louhos Captain as he leads through some areas Nator has never been through nor knew about till know. As Brossu pauses in his walk to talk to his nibiran cohort, Nator looks around and spots a merchant store that buys and sells salvage parts that he never knew about. It appears to have a Druski running the store with a couple Qu'ari moving inventory around. Vaina replies back to Rev “From what I tell from the security footage, the kid is going willingly with Blackmore. Those other professionals appear to be searching for the kid.” then pauses before speaking with a hesitation in her voice “Rev, that corporation wanted on the kid is 100k dead. Someone wants the boy not consuming O2 in a hurry. I dug up more on the Tiki corp and Blackmore. It seems they rescue people that have corp wanted adverts on them. In the last 2 yrs, Tiki corp has employed Blackmore 11 times to recruit wanted beings by various corporations that have issued death warrents. Blackmore's success rate is a 95%. Rev sprinting down the corridor catches attention briefly as he has to move into populated areas to cross over to the docking arms where all the various ships are held in their bays. Minutes tick by as Rev goes up levels and crosses more crowded areas till he is just behind Blackmore and the kid as the two are standing outside the docking airlock leading to the jammer. Rev did his best but the distance was just to great for him to get ahead of the two before they reach their ship.

Brossu Berkesto lets out a rumbling chuckle, ~humans are such infuriating creatures, you simply can't leave them on their own for five minutes!~ turning to Nator he declares "We'd best hustle back, our new friends seem to have problems following orders... not a great start for them." Seeing the humans attention is on the Druski salvage shop he adds "Tchi'Kar'Lix's store, never met a Druski with a better eye for value... the problem being he's a damn fine negotiator too!" Setting off at pace Brossu reaches the dock area as the last supplies are being loaded onto the Trashcan. Rev continues to sprint towards them, but tries to remain out of their sight and stay quiet. As he sprints he takes out his Vibro blade in knife mode and aims his wrist mounted pulse pistol at the Stardust Kid. He tries to get as close as he can before the two enter the airlock and will then attempt to stun the recruiter and kill the Kid. Nator Ranx looks at Brossu and tells him, "Give me 30 minutes to gather my gear and I'll be ready to go." Running back up to his room Nate gathers up his two already packed duffle bags and heads to the secure docking bay where Rover is stored and drags it back to Trashcan. Once Rover is secured in one of the cargo bays before looking for Brossu. Genesis finished her hack and looked over the details. "Typical salvager." she thought to herself. "Almost too neat. I didn't take him as an orderly type. Has to be hiding something." She continued her search throughout the ship, paying paticular attention to anything out of the ordinary. Cyrus still laid in his bed and quickly fell asleep. As Rev rushes the two with his weapons primed for use, Blackmore spins while pushing the kid behind him to bring up a deflector shield created by a nanoveil. Vaina comments “He was aware of us as much as we were of him. He had the security sensors feed him their findings. Smart man. It is interesting to note that he is a Nanokineticist and is using an ammo pack in his hand to power the deflector shields. Side note speculation, if he can generate a shield, he should be able to generate pulser bolts also” then pauses before continuing “Security has been alerted to weapon discharges. ETA of the nearest security reaching us in two minutes”. Blackmore's shield soaked up most of the energy while deflecting the remainder. He is backing up to the edge of the docking tunnel with the kid behind him and his shield. "Whoever you are, you don't need to do this. I claimed the kid for the bounty" he calls out to Rev. Brossu Berkesto strides aboard his ship, nodding to some of the Louhos loader crew as he passes. Activating his comm device he sends out a ship wide message: "All crew to the mess-hall, final preparations before launch... oh, and stop hacking my databases, its enough to give a Louhos trust issues..." As Brossu encounters the load master, he signs off on a half a dozen deliveries to Sigma Epsilion 4. He also notices that he is getting a decent amount of credits for the run which is more than enough to cover the expenses and have some left over to test lady luck again. Doing a quick search on his comm band reveals that there is a shortage of material that Brossu already has in one of his cargo bays from a previous trade job. Getting decent amount of credits for that cargo will be pure profit in his pocket and then there is the salvage job that Oda mentioned. Nator comes jogging up to Brossu as he is signing off on the loading logs. Nator found a mostly empty cargo bay with an independent airlock that is big enough for Rover fit in if needed. Nator spotted 4 other similar bays with airlocks like that but they were loaded with cargo. Genesis goes prowling down through the ship, exploring her new enviroment, when she comes up on a sealed door. The markings beside the door indicates it is the captains quarters and she remembers how touchy Louhos are about their private areas. Using her naoveil to sniff around, Genesis finds omnimass patches scattered about as she moves through the ship. While that type of patching works, it is usually only for temporary repairs due to the fact that a skilled Nanokineticist could revert the patch back to it's protostate. Cyrus dreamed strange dreams while asleep. He dreamed of a pale hand with strings hanging from the fingers reaching out of the dark shadows and at the end of the strings are various faceless people dancing as the fingers wiggle. In another dream, he watched Genesis slowly turn to an ice statue that walked. Everytime a voice said something harsh to her a crack inside the ice appeared. It became apparent to Cyrus that in time she will shatter from the pressure being put on her. Rev gives a slight nod. Slowly backing up while keeping his weapons ready, he then quickly turns away sprinting down another corridor out of reach of Blackmore. "Sorry Vaina, your drone extension is going to have to wait. Blackmore was good, very good. We should probably keep an eye out for this Tiki corporation, anyone willing to piss off other corporations might be useful down the line." He heads towards the ship, while keeping a watchful eye for a vengeful Blackmore. Once back on ship, he stands at the ready in a common area and tries to think of ways of improving his combat skills. Genesis makes the rounds and, when satisfied, begins the return trip to her room. Having seen all she could she made mental notes of what she liked and didn't like about their new "home." Cyrus jolted awake and rubbed his forehead "That damned dream again..": he said. It was always the same one. Now here they were in an unknown place, he wondered if their new boss would add more pressure on to her knowing her skills. He'd be damned if he'd allow her to take on more than she could. She may have been taught, but she is still human and all humans have their breaking point. Brossu Berkesto strides into the mess hall, seeing Oda at his customary table in the corner he tosses the Nibiran his pda and tells him to make the necessary arrangements before heading to the front and addressing the 'crew'. "Welcome aboard the Trashcan. She isn't much but she is now your home for as long as I can put up with you. Respect the ship, respect my rules and I'm sure we'll all get along fine." Despite his words it is evident that Brossu is struggling with inner-turmoil at addressing a large group of humans as equals, "My rules are simple, keep your skinny hands off my things, keep your skinny butts out of my quarters and keep your skinny everything off of the bridge unless you have a damn good reason to be there. Other than that, make yourselves at home. You've no doubt seen the cargo hold on your way in, don't touch the merchandise. There is a maintenance deck just below us with a workshop if needed. The kitchen is just through that door there, you've got your rooms by now, if not see Oda, he'll see you right." Taking a breath he looks around the room, measuring each person up one by one, "I've reviewed your files and reckon you might not be such a bad choice after all, don't make me regret taking on a bunch of humans. We launch in an hour, until then I recommend you get familiar with the ship and find ways to help out. This aint no hotel. Our first run is a simple delivery job to Sigma Epsilion 4, it's not much but it will cover costs and keep us fed. Along the way we'll be checking out a potential salvage opporuntity, will be interesting to see how useful a crew you actually are." Turning on his heel and stomping out of the room Brossu issues a final gruff "Dismissed" and heads to the bridge to ensure clearance has been granted to launch. Oda Xasse catches the pda and immediately begins to set up the future credit transfers necessary to cover all of the ships costs as well as ensure payment for the new crew based on the terms Brossu laid out in Keslar's Hole. As he does so he can't help but chuckle at his friends description of the job just 'covering costs' as he notices there is a reasonable overlap from the deliveries plus the extras Brossu has noted from their already held stock. Twitching his whiskers he adds another planned transfer to ensure some of the upcoming profit is funnelled into Brossu's savings account, the one he doesn't even know about. Once finished he gets up and heads over to Rev to show him to his room...

Nator Ranx stows his gear in his quarters and heads to the maintenance shop to see what he has available to work with. Vaina gives feel of a mental shrug before speaking “It is ok Rev dear. Your safety is more important to me than the drones. I will assign one of my sub-processes to monitor the Tiki-Tiki Corp's activity when we have any type of secure comm connection” then settles down to a virtual image of her cleaning while she is accessing, cataloging, and archiving Rev's memories of the day's activity so they are easier to locate and retrieve. Rev gives his assigned berth a quick look over and makes sure his gear has not been tampered with then makes his way to the common use room that is attatched to the mess-hall. There he finds standing in the corner, covered with a tarp, an obsolete martial sparring dummy. It appears to be non-functioning with one of it's arms broken in the shoulder joint and some of it's electronics exposed on the back of it's head. Atropos gets antsy wthl the wait and decides to exercise while exploring the ship to pick out suitable ambush points in case the ship gets boarded by pirates or corp hunters. Genesis, while making her rounds, notices one of the new crew jogging along but ignores her to continue to her room where Cyrus wakes up without realizing he has his gun in his hand. Cloey wakes up with a large belch and looks about while yawning and licking her lips like she just tasted something nastily fuzzy and does not see her sisters in the room. Lachesis left her snoring sister just a short bit after Atty went for a jogging exploration and follows the ship's dataplan down to a nearby workshop. Finding various materials and components stored in various closed but not locked bins, she begins to putter about with the various tools as an idea slowly begins to crept into the back of her mind. Nator walks into the nearby workshop only to discover it is already occupied by one of the sisters who is in the process of building something. To his eyes, it looks like something that is only partially thought out and dreamed up but Nator notices that she is intensely focused on what she is plasma-welding. When the loud voice of Brossu comes over the intercom “All crew to the mess-hall, final preparations before launch... oh, and stop hacking my databases, its enough to give a Louhos trust issues...”, it startles some of the crew while the others just pause in their actions but everyone finishes up and drifts into the mess-hall just a few moments before Brossu strides into the room and throws something at Oda. After Brossu's little over the top speech, Oda flicks the pda back to Brossu as he started to stomp out of the room. Oda looks at the small group gathered in the room and pipes up in broken consortium “Give him time. He is Louhos and you all are humans. He is doing his best to quell the burning hatred his ancestors felt when your race shackled his kind”. Nator Ranx wanders to the mess hall for Brossu's briefing. Genesis walked into her room to the sound of Cyrus gasping with his gun in his hand "Are you ok?" she asked with a small hint of concern in her voice. He clutched his chest and took a few deep breaths, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just a nightmare. We better get to the mess hall before we get thrown into deep space for being late." Cyrus stood up and walked out without another word. Genesis stood there and watched him depart. She wanted to question him, but thought otherwise. If he wanted her to know, he'd tell her. Instead she followed him to the mess hall to see what was needed. Rev gives a nod at Oda as he turns to leave. Touring the ship to create a map with Vaina’s assistance, he compiles a detailed list of clear safety violations. He ends up back in the common area with most of his gear, he sets his gear on the table. Taking off his helmet he starts cleaning pieces of his gear one by one, and looking it over making sure to keep it all ready. Once and a while he looks over at the training dummy, but doesn’t make a notable reaction. As Rev goes through this process, Vaina aids him by going through the day’s recorded information and allowing him to study Blackmore’s moves. Vaina obviously notices Rev’s passing glances over to the dummy and sends a message to the ship’s workshop, “To anyone in the workshop: are you able to repair this? From Rev.” Vain includes information on the dummy along with the message. Trashcan has been in powersaving mode and seemingly ignoring all the activity happening inside her hull. Seconds after the Captain's announcement lights throughout the ship flicker and come to full brightness and air circulators kick it up a few notches. "Br'ssie," slurs a sleepy voice through ship-wide intercoms, "Y'r b'ck 'ly. I's" (pause for a yawn; the voice sharpens up into the slightly querulous tones of an eldery female), "I was HOPING to get a good nap in. No one show up?" There's a few seconds of silence and then tones of dismay and disbelief ring throughout the ship. "HUMIES? Since when do you hire humies? ODA! ODA! Get the Captain to the medbay, he's clearly ill!" Lachesis moves out of her shared room and heads through the ship recalling the layout from her review of the ship's computer. She finds the workshop nearby and begins digging through the drawers to make a mental list of what components there are available. Even as she goes through everything she realizes that much like every ship and station before, they don't have quite what she needs, but then again, her experiments tended to be a bit extreme. Her current idea of dark energy manipulation for faster-than-light travel was more of a percolating thought than anything she was likely to try to act upon anytime soon. Heeding the call of the ship's captain, Lachesis puts the equipment back into the drawers and begins making her way to the mess hall. She stops by her room to collect Cloey, dragging the still somewhat drunk sister behind her. As the two of them approach the mess hall, Lachesis can feel the gentle tap on her shoulder that lets her know that Atty has caught up and is directly behind her. Lachesis enters the mess hall with her two sisters. Atty stops immediately inside the doorway and proceeds to stand by the wall, positioned to see the whole room. Cloey immediately goes to get something to drink to clear the horrible taste from her mouth while Lachesis moves to the common room, notes the disabled and ill-repaired sparring dummy then looks over at Rev, "I heard your message when I was in the workshop and yeah, I can probably do something with that. Might even be able to upgrade it depending on what I have to work with around here and just how badly it needs fixing. Also guess it depends on how much you want it to be able to fight back." Nator Ranx overhears the conversation regarding the sparring dummy and tells Rev, "I can fix it, I might have to take it apart and copy the parts that are still there to get the other side workin." Takin a closer look Nate whistles, nods and starts jotting down notes... "This trip might not be too horribly boring!" He exclaims as he lightly punches the dummy in the head. Brossu Berkesto rolls his eyes as the ships AI, TC, wakes up with her customary sarcasm, still he had paid extra for an AI with personality so it was his own fault really. Couple that with the fact that ship has a habit of picking up speech and behavioural traits from its primary users, himself and Oda, and Brossu can't help but get the feeling that he has created a monster. Since that monster seems to have developed his mothers sense of humour Brossu can't complain too much, it helps give the sense of home to the ship that has become just that over the years. Heading to the bridge Brossu drops heavily into the captains chair (an extra wide pilots chair with room for his burgeoning shell) and addresses the AI using Oda's pet name for TC due to his stilted speech patterns: "Teecee? Have we got clearance to launch, I'd like to be out of here in the next hour or so please. Also, for your reference, I'm not ill, events have transpired to throw a crew of humans at me and desperate times call for desperate measures or don't you want that upgraded memory you are always moaning about? Also, send a message to Oda that he is required on the bridge please... I know, I know, you can fly us out and set us on course but you know i'm happier with Oda at least pretending to have some sort of control over our movements!" Rev looks confused then grins, to Vaina he simply thinks, “Thanks.” He stands up and gives you each a grin, without his armor he looks young and definitely not human. “Thanks for the assistance, all I really need it to do is be able to take a beating. Don’t really need it to fight back at all, just regular specs on that. What I would think be more useful is making it durable to the point we could practice with it longer, maybe self repairing?” The sudden burst over the comm’s gives him pause, shakes his head, “I find it confusing he hired us if he doesn’t like humans. Interesting.” Starts putting back on his armor. TeeCee calls through the whole ship, "Oda to the Bridge, Oda to the Bridge!" and then shifts to speaking just through the bridge's speakers. "Launching in an hour? Let me see what I can do... and I'd rather have Oda deal with the softshells in Traffic Control, you know that. Why they don't switch to AI-driven traffic control is beyond me...." and here comes the litany of grumbles as TC initiates the sequences needed to eventually depart the station, the complaints a familiar song between the two of them. "You're in luck," she announces as Oda reaches the bridge about five minutes later, "We're currently 87th in line for departure, provided we close out our docking fees in the next ten minutes, and we should be out of the station's holding pattern inside of the original hour you requested." The AI's voice softens, "I'll try to keep THEM distracted and out of your way. And I won't even complain that your route takes us near the Sigma Epsilon Convergence, despite how much it makes my hull itch." As the ship prepares for departure, the ship's bridge and corridors fill with the rich, and often incomprehensible to non-Louhos, strains of Louhocian classical music. Teecee also, silently, locks down all ship's services to provide only non-premium foods and and entertainment unless the request is initiated by Brossu or Oda. The workshop resources, however, she leaves far less restricted, as if directing energies at the dummy restoration project. As everyone settles in and the ship slowly powers up then lurches into the departure line, it alls goes smoothly. Leaving the station was clean and simple as following the beacon light drones. A constant stream of ships coming and going shows how busy this station is and how focal it is to the commerce in this region of space. Once clear of the station space, TC spools up the hyperdrive engines but waits for the Captains command to jump. Oda remains in his pilots chair ready to take manual control if anything happens. TC continues to speak in Louhosian “Once in hyperspace, it will take approximately 3 days to reach of destination as they are not to far away. The other spot that Oda entered in the database is about 12hrs off route but still in the system.” while displaying text on various screens for the humans to read. It shows arrival eta countdown at 72hrs and counting. Rev gives each person working on the sparring dummy a bow. “Well I think I’ve made my request clear, but feel free to do whatever you feel is necessary. I would caution making something that fights back too much, not a great idea inside a ship. But I’ll leave it to you two to determine, if you require assistance I will be around. I need to make some preparations.” Rev walks off to his room as the ship takes off. Vaina plays some of his prefered music over the ship’s. Rev sits in his room and begins working on various reports and messages while he waits for the jump.

Nator Ranx sits at the computer terminal in the common room and pulls up the maintenance & repair manual for the sparring dummy and starts to read it. Within hours after the leap to hyperspace, boredom settles in. Everyone has learned the basic layout of the ship and explored to their heart's content while those will skill for repairs have turned their attention to the sparring dummy. Nator found the schematics and shared them with one of the sisters. Between the two of them they tear sparring dummy down to it's base components and argue about how to rebuild it or modify it. Rev is able to get everything settled and encrypted to pulsed out on the first drop out of hyperspace. Vaina and TC seem to be having a slight virtual arguement over the use of ship resources which gives Rev a minor headache Gensis and Cyrus at first stayed by themselves, isolated from everyone in the group, but soon Cyrus can not stand the boredom while young ladies are nearby that are craving his attention or so he feels. Brossu Berkesto takes a look at the planned route, nodding at one of the visual sensors on the bridge he mutters to TC "Ok, you can work out the fine details with Oda, just plot a course that allows us to check out this potential salvage opportunity without making us late for the delivery, its a good payout and I'd hate to miss out on the full amount by running late." Turning to Oda he drops a huge hand onto the Nibiran's tiny shoulder by comparison. "Once you and 'Teecee' have finished arguing get some rest while we are still in the safer parts of this region, I have the horrible feeling I'll need you sharp and alert later. As for me, being around these humans has given me a headache, I'm going for a lay down!" Brossu stalks out of the bridge and back to his quarters, doing his best to avoid contact with any of his new crew, all the while shaking his head at the recent turn of events which have conspired to put him in this awkward position. Nator Ranx starts working on the electronics of the sparring dummy while the sisters are fabricating the missing parts. Genesis is content to be by herself. She decides to check the ships weapons (if there are any) and see how they function in case there is trouble. While she can't really work them, Cyrus would be a capable gunner. Cyrus, while Genesis was off on her own, decided to follow the three sisters, shamelessly flirting with them and trying to be suave. Rev heads to the common area to train and distract himself, trying his best to resist the headache that is forming in his head without getting involved but soon finds a suitable sparring partner in the form of Atty who seems to be his equal in hand to hand combat. People soon learned in a very short time not to get between the two of them when they are sparring otherwise they might get hit hard. TeeCee complains loudly when a blow misses it's target due to the combatants putting new dents in her walls. As time flows by on their first day of the trip, everyone keeps busy while staying out of the Captain's way. TeeCee and Vaina settle their differences while Nator with the help of one of the sisters get the sparring dummy up and running only to watch Rev almost take it apart with ease. With a grumble, Nator and Lachesis takes the dummy apart again. Lachesis grins almost evilly at Nator then quiet explains her ideas of upgrades to him before starting to completely fabricate a whole new body for the sparring dummy. She told Nator that the electronics had to be totally overhauled and reworked. Genesis starts showing up on the bridge while Brossu is not there and surprises Oda the first time but as she just settles down to watch the shifting points of light in hyperspace, he doesn't say anything while he is working on stuff. Cyrus is causally getting close to Cloey while she is, down in engineering, studying the engines and other schematics of the ship. With only half an ear listening to Cyrus, Cloey is talking to TeeCee and finding out why there are a handful of warning indicators flashing on some of the screens. Brossu for the most part tends to avoid the humans till he realizes that this is his crew so he has to get use to being around them. After a full day of travel, TeeCee politely informs everyone in tradespeak, the agreed upon universal language between all the races of the consortuim, that they are entering the rift. As everyone is gathered on the bridge to view the slowly growing change in the lights of hyperspace as they go deeper into the rift, warning alarms start to whoop and scream. Without warning, the whole ship shudders, strains then drops out of hyperspace and into a space battle. Small darts flit about as pulser bolts splatter across shields between ships. With a quick glance at tactical screen, it seems the Trashcan got caught on the edge of a gravity web, a device used to pull ships out of hyperspace, and thrown in to the mix of some pirates battling it out. Klaxons sound, monitors flash alerts as the damage is inflicted on the ship., the air is growing thick with the acrid smell of something burning until life support sucks it away to the scrubbers. The subliminal vibration of the engines disappear but echoes radiates through the plating as two pirate ships attach themselves to the hull. Cloey is holding on to a nearby console, while studying the readouts from the engines as she is muttering something about how dare they hurt her baby, looks up to say “Cutting through the hull in Cargo bay 4 and 9”. Atty, quivering in excitement, is crouched poised to rush off into battle while Atty double checks Atty's weapons. Rev, standing balanced, as the rocking of the ship is a natural feel to him. Without thought, he grins while efficiently checking his weapons and thinking about where to ambush the soon to be boarders. Nator moving back and forth between a viewscreen showing the pirates ships which looks to worth a decent amount of credits and an internal monitor showing his small salvager ship “Fido” being exposed to vacuum as the pirates cut a hole in the hull. Oda is jabbering in his native tongue as he is trying to twirl the mule about in an effort to dodge the attacks but soon realizes how futile that was as two of the pirate darts are attached to the ship. Brossu laments to his buddy “Oda, I swear you said it was suppose to be a simple cargo run”. Nator Ranx dons an emergency suit and runs to his quarters to grab his rifle before heading to an airlock across Trashcan from where the pirates are. Slipping out the airlock, Nator slips around the hull of Trashcan to line up a shot on the pirate cutting into the cargo bay. Rev seals his suit and readies for combat, readying his pulse pistol and vibro blade. "Cyrus, I recommend you stay here on the guns and assist Oda in an attempt to protect the ship. I'll go greet our guests Brossu." He leaves running at full sprint towards one of his designated ambush points, utilizing Vaina to use what ever ship's data is available to him to get choose the best route and point. Brossu Berkesto sighs heavily. "Ok crew, time to prove your worth already it seems. Those who can fight, do so. Technical crew see if you can't hamper these bastards with blast doors, but don't risk the cargo with any vacuum nonsense!" Patting Oda on the shoulder he gestures for the Nibiran to grab his pulse pistol and follow him. Heading off the bridge Brossu grabs a large wrench and hefts it in his huge hand, testing the weight. "TC, divert all power to security systems and life support. The engines are useless to us right now. Lock down on all doors that aren't required for access from the bridge to the breach points immediately and give emergency access to core systems to the techs on the bridge, help them where you can but you have final say." As Nator slowly moves along the hull in space, he gets to observe the spacebattle with his own eyes. The tactics being used by one side is very professional and devastating to the other side. When Nator crests the curvature of the hull to see the figure cutting the hull with a small heavy duty plasma cutter he lines up his shot and zeros in the scope on the figure. Nator, thinking back to the last time he interacted with pirates, can tell this is not an usual pirate's suit for it is armored and while it has the markings and patches that indicate it is a pirate they are laid out wrong. The patches are almost laid out in almost a militaristic style. As Rev sprints through the various hatches and corridors, he feels Vaina and TC share information and his path is illuminated in an hud overlay to the corner of his vision. Vaina speaks quietly in his mind “TC has given me complete access to the interior security protocols. I've dropped and locked blast doors to funnel the intruders to focal points. Atty has already took off so I'm sending her directions to one of the focal points while I'm directing you to another. Rev, these are not pirates I think but mercenaries. I'm reviewing their tactics and everything is pointing towards a military training aspect. There are pirates out in space fighting them but the ones we are dealing with, 85% positive and climbing, are mercenaries. Be careful”. Rev reaches his destination within a few minutes and is poised to ambush the intruders when they come through the intersection while using some duraplast crates for cover.

As Brossu and Oda rush off the bridge towards the third and last focal point while TC talks in their ear comm “Boss, I handed off the interior security protocols to Vaina and she is directing the intruders to three specific focal points. Rev is headed to one, Atty is headed to the second, and the third is just outside the engine room, corridor D intersection 789, where you will have some cover. I have the engine room itself locked down. Vaina just shared the fact that she is almost positive, 90% and climbing, that we are dealing with mercenaries so be careful”. Brossu and Oda reach the intersection but no one is seen yet only the tread of their feet is heard when TC speaks up again “Boss you have 3 intruders bearing down on you. Rev has 2 and Atty has 2. Nator is outside the hull and apparently about to attack another intruder that is trying to cut into cargo hold 1 which holds the shipment to the colony. If that hold is breached then all the cargo will be ruined and we will lose our contract and the payment”. Atropos rushes down through the corridors till she reaches the location point Vaina fed to her visor but without pausing Atty rushes past the location and engages the intruders in an larger more open area. Using her martial arts skills in an attempt to slow down and cause confusion as she moves through them and past. While everyone is rushing about, Cyrus is busy manning the ships guns and using them to shoot at every ship in range for everything was a target right now for him. Genesis is at a tactical display whose readout is puzzling her. She is seeing military precision from one pirate side along with their craft's maneuvers which appear to be corp or military grade. Glancing at the monitors showing the interior through various cameras, Genesis watches how the intruders act in unison and professionally. Lachesis and Clothos are working on damage control through some engineering panels. Nator Ranx takes aim and settles the cross hairs of his pulse rifle on the seam of the "pirate's" visor, clicks the safety to three round burst and slowly squeezes the trigger 11 blowing the pirate's visor off of his helmet. Rev waits for them to get closer, changing his strategy a bit with the realization that these aren’t your average pirates. Once they’re within his range, he rushes towards pirates for the ambush shooting the further intruder’s with a burst of pulse rounds and using the closest most mercenary as cover while stabbing him with the vibro blade. Brossu Berkesto instructs Oda to find sufficient cover ready to target any non-engaged mercenaries once Brossu gets in close enough to give him the advantage with his strength and brawling skills. Hefting his improvised weapon once more, he takes a steadying breath and sets himself at a corner ready to surprise the intruders if at all possible. Oda finds a position back the way they came so that if they need to fall back they aren't trapped. Genesis looks over the screens with wonder. From what she knows of space travel and of attacks, these seem more than everyday space bandits. She decides to make this known to her new boss "These attackers are showing intense training and coordination." While she is talking with him, Cyrus mans the guns and tries to shoot at the attacking ships. Nator felt so proud of his shot but it turns to disbelief when the pirate pulls himself back onto the deck by his tether and looks in the general direction towards Nator only to reveal a warbot's machanical face was under that visor. Nator also notices that it has strapped on it's back a portable shield generator similar to what Oda wears. It pulls out a pulse pistol and fires off a shot at Nator while moving towards him. The two intruders spin towards Rev as his pulse pistol goes off. His shot misses the farther intruder who lumbers towards Rev while the Vibroknife skitters across the armored torso of the other intruder leaving a slash in the plating to reveal something that surprises Rev. It reveals more armor plating. Vaina states with a calm demeanor in his mind “Rev dear, you know splitting your attention on two unidentified targets is not a wise choice. Remember what you were taught about attacking unknown targets with unknown capabilities, one target at a time.” then her voice changes tone “Oh my. Rev honey, you might want to get away and revise your plan. The interior scanners just penetrated their stealth jams and they are not living beings but warbots made to appear as living beings.” The intruder. that Rev just tried to knife, lashes out with a fist at Rev. Brossu bunches up his mucles as the sounds of movement comes clunking towards his spot when Teecee comes across his earbud in an worried voice “Boss, Vaina just informed me that the intruders are warbots. Be careful.” Cyrus's attack hits the ship solidly and on the monitor it can be seen operating erratically. Genesis overhears the comm chatter from TeeCee and recognizes the pattern being used. It is an attack/defense pattern codified years ago by the GSEC (Galactic Stellar Engineering Corporation). These warbots are only defending something they were assigned to and they apparently are assuming we are with the other side they are fighting. If no one has attacked one yet an declaration of neutrality could be issued to them and they would stand down otherwise they will retaliate as their programming would classify the crew as hostiles. Brossu Berkesto baulks at the revelation coming over his comm device from TC. ~War bots? What the hell is going on here...~ Half laughing at the wrench in his hands Brossu retreats to Oda's position. "War bots... TC says this isn't our fight. Let's get back to the bridge and seal the ship off, apparently we might be able to declare ourselves a neutral party... if we aren't too late!" As the pair begin an ordered retreat Brossu communicates with TC "Keep routes back to the breaches open for our uninvited guests and seal everything between the crew and them. Get the crew to head back towards the bridge, defensively mind. Lets show these bags of bolts that we are just defending whats ours while you negotiate for safe passage... oh and if anyone is manning the guns see if you can't highlight the pirates as the only targets to show our side in this... between us and the bots we might just survive this if we can play it out right." Muttering under his breath so that only Oda can overhear he continues "humans and now war bots... whats next an attractive Nibiran?" Oda can't help but shriek with laughter. Rev jumps back away from the punch and runs towards another ambush point, possibly using Vaina's help to open and close doors and finding the best route. Nator Ranx realizes that he is facing a warbot and drops to the deck to avoid it's shot. Nate then releases his grip on his tethered pulse rifle and makes the universal peace gestures at the warbot. TC replies to Brossu “Affirmative but we may be to late, Sensors report that the human called Nator Ranx engaged an intruder on the hull approximately 23.496 seconds ago with shots from a pulser rifle and the intruder responded in kind but sensors in that area are now offline due to external damage.” then pauses before continuing “Both the nanoGenic known as Rev and the human called Atropos has also engaged their targets but has limited success with their opponents. Rev is retreating to another position to attack again but will pass along your orders to stand down to his VR assistant. I will try to contact and pass the information and orders to the human also.” and gives a brief pause “I reassigned targets on the main targeting terminal to just the pirates. Sending peace declaration to the GSEC side of the conflict with explanation that we were responding to attacks of piracy without knowledge of their involvement”. Rev's leap backward barely escaped the punch from the intruder but it exposed him to a pulser attack from the second intruder. Sprinting down the hallway, Rev feels a cramp in one of his legs as his mutation was trying to change his muscles while they are being used. Vaina dropping blast doors seems to be slowing the intruders down.

The warbot's pulser bolt grazes Nate in the shoulder as he drops to the deck. His arm numb and his should tingling indicates the shot was set on stun. Nate notices that the warbot has paused in it's advance but still has its weapon drawn and aimed at him. Genesis feeling it useless to ask her new "boss" for advice (since he just ignored her..probably due to her human-ness) she decided to take matters into her own hands. Taking her Nanoveil out, she attempts to communicate with the group that seems to be the "good" guys in this fight, the ones with the warbots. Meanwhile Cyrus pats himself on the back and goes to shoot at more of the Pirate ships. Nator Ranx looks at the warbot and using his helmet mounted light starts speaking to it in Morse code, "What is going on here? We were yanked out of hyperdrive into the middle of your battle where you attacked us and were trying to board our salvage vessel." Rev continues to try and get away from the Warbots. As he strategically moves away from the intruders, "Vaina, can you calculate a target for a Dead Man's Drift." Vaina responds with a red shocked emoji and says, "Are you sure?" Rev curses the pirates and just nods his head, as he move towards Nator's position. Brossu Berkesto continues his orderly but hasty retreat along the ships corridors with Oda watching the rear. Each door they pass through slides shut shortly after and the satisfying 'thunk' of the locking mechanism being activated allows the pair a measure of safety. Continually swearing under his breath at the ongoing bad luck Brossu reaches the bridge and demands a status report from TC and the humans assembled there, not really caring who speaks up first as long as it is good news! Genesis stands still for a moment as a hazy film lifts off her body. Cloey and Lachesis both stare in shocked silence while Cyrus glances back before returning to playing this nifty video game of shooting pirates out of space. The nanoveil shivers briefly then flies off into the ventilation system, splintering into smaller groups as they seek out the warbots inside the ship till they find them and, best way to put it, infect them. Sweat breaks out on Genesis's forehead as she struggles to maintain control from such a distance but soon contact is made. Cyrus is hooting and hollering as he tags a pirate ship after another. Between his shooting and the megacorps warbot ships, the pirates on reeling and falling back. The warbot stands still looking at Nator with it's gun still drawn but not pointing directly at him. There is no response other than it has stopped moving and not firing. Vaina says quietly in Rev's mind “Dead man drift is not needed. TC just informed me that communication with the main AI that is controlling the warbots is established. Seems Nator contacted the warbot he was sent to deal with, the human called Genesis has contacted the AI in a most unusual manner and expressed our side of the conflict. TC has established direct communication with the AI's ship and has explained what is happening. Do you still wish for me to calculate the drift or should we return to the bridge?” The first thing Brossu sees is Genesis standing stock still in the middle of his bridge with sweat beading on her forehead as a misty haze slowly gathers and swirls around her. Out of the corner of his eye, he spots two of the sisters focusing on damage control terminal. Directly behind Genesis, on the weapons terminal, is Cyrus who is still shooting at orange highlighted ships that are growng smaller as they are fleeing the area. TC's voice speaks up over the bridge speakers but it is in Consortium language “Boss, the pirates are fleeing the area of space due to their losses between the combined shooting skills of the human called Cyrus and the GSEC warbots. Minimal damage was done to the hull. Intruders are being recalled to the main ship. After the hyperdrives are rest and re-energized, which will take about 12hrs, we can be on our way again.” Brossu Berkesto sputters in impotent rage "TC, what are the chances of reparations to the damage done to your damn hull? We were dragged kicking and screaming into this fight and damn well near lost our lives because the programming on those overgrown tin soldiers wasn't good enough to identify a freight vessel passing through the area at the damn speed of light!" Rev shakes his head no, "No, I'm good. Just wanted to really kill some pirates." He stands down and returns to the bridge to stand guard. Genesis establishes her contact with the warbots and sends a peace signal to them, letting them know they mean no harm. Thankfully, with all the fighting from the warbot ships and Cyrus on the guns, the pirates soon back off. Cyrus hops out of the seat and cheers "Oh yeah baby! Did you see that? I must have taken out 10 of those guys!" He only took out, maybe, 3, but Genesis still stood there, sweat spreading from her brow. Cyrus immediately backed off and gave her space, much needed. Soon, the nanoveil returned to Genesis and she took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off of her forehead. She nods "We are safe at the moment." She turns to Brossu, "I assume this means you now know our skill sets and what we can do on your ship. Even from 'humans' ", she accentuates the word human. Cyrus gives Brossu and Genesis a look before casually walking over to the others. Nator Ranx continues to communicate with "his" warbot through Morse Code, "This fight is not ours, we just want to fix the damage to our ship and be on our way." TC continues in her calm tone over the intercom so that all the crew are hearing the conversation including any that are outside the hull in a spacesuit “Boss, negotiations is in process right now for hull repair. According to the AI, the pirates were the ones that activated the gravmine. The AI calculated a 67.893% that we were reinforcements for the pirates but to activate it's defense subroutine, that calculation had to reach 75%. When Nator then Atropos and Rev attacked the scouts that probability went to 74.951%. If you attacked then the probability would have increased to 85% which would initiated their defense routine and would have put us in the attack cycle matrix”. Rev comes walking into the bridge as TC talks over the comm. He sees Genesis looking exhausted while a hazy mist swirls around her and slowly sinks back into her through the skin. Out fof the corner of his eye he spots Lachesis and Cloey standing over by an engineering terminal where a display of damage scrolls by and watches Cyrus stroll over to them to start flirting with them. Genesis feels the AI's consciousness in the connection she has with her nano-veil as they are interconnected with the warbots. There she feels something cold, calculating, inhuman watching and reviewing her as if it is weighing her thoughts and actions in a judgement then as she withdrew the nanoveil back into herself, the last fleeting moment of connection to the warbots and their controlling AI she felt a brief sense of approval then it was gone. Nator watches the warbot stand still as he communicates with his lights then over his comm he hears TC talking while there is background noises of the others talking also. Without warning a laser dot shows up on his chest then travels up onto his helmet then a mechanical voice is heard over his comm “Acknowledged. We are in communications with your AI. Information is being weighed and processed” then the warbot turns about and walks back to the ship it arrived in. Nator Ranx continues forward to the outer door of the cargo bay where Rover is store, hits the cycle button, waits for the door to open and gets Rover ready to go out and fix the damage to the hull. Cloey touches her sisters arm and gestures to follow then heads towards the exit off the bridge while calling out in her soft voice "My sister and I are heading to engineering to start the hyperdrive while repairs are being done" but smiles shyly at Cyrus just before Lachesis frowns and pushes her out the door the glances back at Cyrus with a stern look. Genesis feels the AI's sense and it's "eye" gazing at her and into her. Though she would never admit it outright, the feeling is nothing like anything one could experience, being able to travel outside of yourself. Once it came back, she sensed the approval of the warbots ship and continued her talk with Brossu "So what's the next step? Any other people that want to kill us?" Cyrus, meanwhile, flirts with the sisters and gives a snarky grin as they walk off. He walks over to Genesis and Brossu "Didja see me shoot those things though? Man that was insane! The guns on this hunk are nothing to shake a leg at, they are pretty sweet!" Brossu Berkesto briefly acknowledges Cyrus without taking his eyes off of Genesis. "Hmm, you did good, TC's weapons aren't up to much but you made them count." Directing his full attention to Genesis and effectively dismissing Cyrus he continues "What was that thing you did. TC reports that some sort of nano related activity stemmed from your location before I got here... I don't judge but I don't like secrets on my ship. Join me in my quarters later once we've got this mess sorted out if you would?" Without waiting for an answer he gets onto the ships comms "That was close everyone but I saw real positives from you all that give me some measure of hope, right now we are all individuals but once we work as a team I think we'll be ok, salvage isn't usually this rough but that was a good dry run for any future trouble. Techs to start repairs internally, hopefully those tin cans out there will acknowledge my claim for assistance on Teece's hull." Nator floats Rover out and about the hull to look over the damage. Not as much as he thought there would be but there was enough to be concern. As he was about to start performing a temp patch with some omnimass Nate spots some flickering thrusters in the distance that were slowly growing brighter. A small group of repair droids came into view with each of them tugging a piece of hull plating with them. With a shock Nate realizes that these droids went out and started salvaging parts from wrecked pirate ships and there are more pieces floating out there. He also knows from his earlier examination of the ship that there is about a half a dozen cargo bays not loaded and could easily gather some good salvage off this area. Cloeys voice chimes over the intercom “Hello? You hear me ok?” then pauses briefly before continuing “Ok we are down in the engineering and after looking over stuff I have one thing to say. How the flark did this ship even move, let alone get into hyperspace? You do understand that omnimass is a temporary fix and not something you should build a complete bulkhead out of? Do you have anymore completed repairs that I should know about that involved omnimass? Like hullplating or maybe coolant pipes, hmm? Now the hyperdrives are offline but I have them recharging. That gravmine did a number on the powerbank but the reactor core is fine and now that we are not shunting power to the shields and weapons, it can start recharging the powerbank. You know you have room down here to put in a spare powerbank so that it would allow the ship to jump almost immediately after dropping out of hyperspace or in this case getting yanked out of it. I know it would be expensive as all glorp dipping days but it would pay for itself if something like this happened again.” Lachesis's voice is heard I the background “Atty, just put that over there gently and quit picking up random pipes to playtest their swinging weight” Atropos voice is a faint mumble that could not be clearly heard then Lachesis speaks again “If you are upset about not getting to fight the warbots much I'm sure the ships AI, TC, can arrange for one of those warbots to spar with you”. TC reports over the intercoms that the hyperdrives are slowly recharging and will be ready for use in 10 hrs. She also reports that the AI is having repair droids assisting with the hull repairs but then she got a puzzled tone in vocal output “Boss, Nator is requesting clearance to use cargo holds 12 thru 14, holds 18 and 22. When requesting clarification why, he only responded salvage. Those holds are empty. Should I give him clearance?” and waits for a reply. After a few minutes Brossu realizes that he just asked a human female to join him in his quarters alone and Oda was standing still with a quiet look on his face while his beak clicked a few times as it open and shut without speaking. Nator Ranx heads over to one of the pirate's ships and starts removing it's weapons while waiting for permission to use the holds. Nate radios TC, "Can you ask Brossu if there are any particular parts that he wants to use to update Trashcan?" Genesis turns away from Brossu just as soon as he did, not acknowledging his demand. Cyrus whistles "Alone time with the Captain eh?" he did the sly eyebrow raise, but Genesis only stared at him "If this means he'll trust us, I will talk to him privately. This may be a good step in getting a permanent job and residence." Cyrus nods "All right, all right..." Later, after work was underway on the ship, Genesis would head to Brossu's cabin and wait for him to get there to talk.

Brossu Berkesto watches the shocked looks on the various humans faces, seeing Oda's reaction is finally the straw that breaks the Druski Lord's back and the credit drops... "Bah, humans..." he mutters to himself before announcing aloud "Bring Cyrus along too if he cares to join us, I get the feeling there is plenty he could tell me too." Turning to look at the readouts on a nearby screen Brossu assesses the hold space and technical specs of Trashcan for a few moments. Activating his comm device he sends a message to Nator, "Salvage what you can that could be of value, either for repairs, upgrades or sale. We've got 10 hours to kill and a war-bot protection crew for now at least. TC, give him assistance where needed and see if you can't flirt with that war bot vessel for some information on their current job and how long they'll be in the area for?" Completely forgetting the name of the female human mechanically minded crew member he continues with a message down to engineering, "Female Nator, Trash Can may not be the top of the line but she has done me proud on many an occasion. However I'm sure she has a few areas where improvement could be needed, I'll get her to send you a report of any less than complete repairs." With a heavy sigh and a last look around the bridge he heads off to his quarters for a drink. "TC, send a reminder to Genesis and Cyrus that I would appreciate their company in about 4 hours time, I need a lay down!" Brossu activating his comm device he sends a message to Nator, "Salvage what you can that could be of value, either for repairs, upgrades or sale. We've got 10 hours to kill and a war-bot protection crew for now at least. TC, give him assistance where needed and see if you can't flirt with that war bot vessel for some information on their current job and how long they'll be in the area for?" then TC's voice takes over the channel “Nator, You requested holds are unlocked and temporarily placed under your controls in Rover, who is cute and should get a maintenance checkup soon. It looks like her left shoulder waldo servo is indicating overdue repair/maintenance” then she grows quiet. Vaina talks to Rev “Rev honey, can you spare me for a few minutes, I need to visit someplace and I have to concentrate on this really hard”. Another voice, a young womans, speaks up “Nate? This is Cloey. Can you hear me clearly? If so then find any and all powerbanks, even parts of them. Don't worry about any engines but grab as much hull plating and powerbanks you can find then worry about the engines. Genesis hears Brossu tell TC about wanting a nap so after waiting the 4 hours her and Cyrus go and knock on his cabin door. Nator Ranx acknowledges TC and Cloey over the radio before entering the pirate's ship to maneuver it closer to trashcan and then look for a salvageable powerbank after looking through the crew's personal belongings in a search for more music, cash, weapons, books and contraband. Rev goes to where Vaina needs to get, along the way asking, "Any reason the GSEC would be here? Or is this a common route." Nator Ranx uses Rover's plasma cutter to cut a hole in the hull of the dart to remove the powerbank. Once the powerbank is removed Nate transfers it and the cut pieces of hull into the cargo bay. Once those are stowed, he continues to cut up the relatively undamaged hull pieces to fill the hold. Rev chuckles and shakes his head, "And that is why you are the brains, and I am the mutated set of muscles. Very good." Nator Ranx loads all the salvaged material in the cargo hold before heading to his quarters to check out the stuff he picked up in the dart's crew compartment. Genesis knocks on Brossu's door and calls out "You said to come talk to you?" Rev nods his head and says, "This either going to be fun or very dangerous..and fun." He then tries to figure out how to get everyone together and then messages the crew, "I got some information that might interest everyone, those who want to listen should meet me in the common area." Nator Ranx wanders to the common area to hear what Rev has to say Brossu Berkesto opens the door to his quarters form his comfortable chair behind a huge granite desk, a slab of stone taken from the mines where he grew up, and waves the humans in and to the seats opposite him. “I’m a Louhos of few words, in fact I’ve used more than enough on this venture already... however if I am to start trusting a new crew, humans at that, then I’m going to need a bit less secrecy around here. As far as I can tell every last one of you is running from something or looking for something more than my wonderful company and that is fine by me as long as it doesn’t bring trouble to my door. I’m not asking for your life story, we are all entitled to our deepest and darkest secrets but that thing you did” he continues, looking directly at Genesis, “was powerful enough to affect a large contingent of war-bots according to TC, and something that powerful aboard my ship is something I’d like to understand more about.” He pours himself a drink of a liquid that hisses and spits as it hits the bottom of the metal cup and thinks twice before offering the humans a Louhos beverage, instead taking a bottle of something more suitable to their delicate constitutions from the shelf behind him instead. Pouring them a drink each he adds “If you know anything about me yet it is that I am all about profit, and while it seems you two could be very valuable to the right people I get the impression you could be even more valuable to me... I guess what I’m saying is that as members of my crew, you can trust me...” he pauses briefly before muttering “I guess I’m not a Louhos of few words after all... hmmm”. Leaning back in his chair he eyes the two humans carefully... Genesis gracefully (or as graceful as she could muster) accepted the drink and her and Cyrus listened to Brossu talk. They looked at each other, Cyrus appearing nervous and Genesis showing no emotion, as per usual. Cyrus rubbed the back of his head, "Well, it's hard to explain.." Genesis spoke up "They are nano-bots. I have been bred and formed with them in my system. I can call them at any time and make any tool necessary, be it a weapon, a shield, healing methods, stealth, or a nanoveil, as you saw with the warbots. I prefer not o say how I obtained such methods, but rest assured if I felt I would bring you unnecessary danger, I wouldn't have joined your crew." she took a sip of her drink and continued, "Along with the nano-bots, I have also been trained in diplomacy and espionage, should those become useful. Cyrus is a good marksman, as you may have seen him with the ships, but I can do a variety of things as needed. I hope that has satisfied your interest." Brossu Berkesto grunts his acceptance of Genesis' explanation. "I'm not one to force more details from someone than they are willing to give and you've told me more than I think your man there seems comfortable with which tells me that you've not led me astray. I'm happy to allow you your history as long as it doesn't get in the way of work, at least now I know for sure that you are far more use to me as a crew member than a bargaining tool if the issue ever arose." He steeples his huge fingers before him before continuing in a low, grave tone, "I'm going to assume some sort of corporation research has its dirty fingers in your creation somewhere and those sort of things often come back to bite you in the arse... do your job, and do it well and I can guarantee you that I'll do all within my power to keep you a free woman." As he finishes his drink the comm speakers announce Rev's request for an audience. With his customary heavy sigh, Brossu rises from his desk and heads towards the door, ushering the humans ahead of him. "Come on, lets go see how my day can get worse..." Genesis nodded and stood up with Cyrus. Having felt they reached a mutual decision she returned to the common area to see what was needed. Sounds of the two of them arguing faintly is heard then Vaina speaks up again “SGEC Tartarus, that is the AI controlled ship out there, is on a hunt and retrieve mission and it involves the three sisters. There is a retrieval notice on their heads and the only reason that we are not under attack is because Genesis nano-veil interfered with the short term memory of the warbots some how. The pirate attack was an inconvenience to the AI for they were on their way to Deepspace 6 station as that was the last location they were spotted”. Lachesis's voice comes over the comm “Crap” then Cloey's voice “I can cut two to three hours off the jumpdrive charge if Nator can bring me any powerbanks he salvaged” then in the background Lachesis's voice is heard again “Atropo put that plasma cutter down. They don't know where we are and are not attacking us right now”. The comm link from engineering cuts out without warning.

Nator Ranx addresses everyone gathered in the common room, "Bugger GSEC, they knew that No-Li was a deadly place to set up a colony and left us to die." That being said, Nate heads down engineering, anchors the ends of three spools of cable and carries them to the salvaged power banks. Using the intercom Nate calls engineering and tells Lachesis to start connecting the cables while he starts hooking them to all three power banks. Nator Ranx looks unhappily at the three sets of cables going through the airlock doors and heads back to engineering to find sealing cable feeds to install through the bulkheads. Nate spends the next few days doing a proper installation job, including adding feedthroughs at each inner bulkhead, living on coffee and uppers until the job is done and no cables block any door from sealing. Brossu Berkesto glares at the assembled crew and shakes a weary but ineffective fist at the comms speakers as if the engineering level can see him, all this achieves is a small chuckle from TC who has long become accustomed to her captains impotent fury. “I knew there was trouble on this ship somewhere!” Turning to Genesis he offers a heartfelt thanks for her disruption of the war-bots before heading to the bridge. “TC see if you can’t block any attempts to scan us or listen in on our comms, get Vaina to help if possible as she seems pretty good at that kind of thing.” Turning to Oda he asks him to head down to the engineering department and tell the sisters to stay put and stay off the comms, work is fine but don’t advertise their presence electronically. Sitting in his chair he starts to punch co-ordinates in for the planned delivery destination, all thoughts of further salvage lost to a strong desire to get somewhere with an atmosphere. “Oh, and TC... as soon as we have the power lets get going shall we...” Rev remains silent as Brossu begins to leave, "If you want Vaina's assistance please talk directly to me or send a message to my comm’s, anything I receive, see or hear Vaina does as well.” He pauses for a moment, “If you wouldn’t mind Vaina, please assist TC.” Stares at Brossu for a moment as he turns his back and begins to walk out, and as he walks out sends a private message to Genesis and Cyrus, “If you wouldn’t mind, could you just tell me if you trust Brossu after your little meeting. Don’t need details if you want to keep that private, but am personally trying to figure out if I trust the captain.” In preparation for Vaina and TC working, he gets to somewhere private with a table and starts to clean his weapons to distract himself and keep his mind off the headache. Genesis responded to Rev's message while Cyrus went to find the sisters and "console" them. "I do not trust anyone. He isn't to thrilled about having humans aboard, but seems genuine in at least giving us a try. He is fine with secrets provided they don't interfere with his work, and given the recent message involving the three girls, that doesn't look well for them. I believe as long as we do our work and do it well, we'll have a job and spot on the ship, but as far as trust goes, I think he'd sooner shoot us out of an airlock if it came down to it." As the hours crawl by, nerves slowly growing tense, while the Tartarus hangs out in space nearby. It's drones crawling all over the skin of TC, doing repair work while Nate is working on converting a cargo hold into a semi-permanent powerbank containment room. Rev has completely torn down, cleaned, and repaired his weapons and every other weapons he could get his hands on as Vaina and TC work together to ensure the protection of the ship and it's crew. TC reminds Brossu that their scheduled route runs them nearby (it is a few light minutes out of their route) a potential salvage job that he wanted to look at. Six hours after that fateful discussion Cloey's voice crackles over the intercom “We are juiced and ready to jump. Those patch cables that Nate used with the salvaged banks did the trick. We were able to bleed them dry and charge up the drive so Boss anytime you want to give the word, we are gone” then TC's voice came over the comm “I just notified the Tartarus that we are able to go to hyperspace and thanked them for the assistance. Anything else?”. Brossu Berkesto sits on the bridge staring out at the space debris before him. The mess that used to be a pirate attack squad could well have been him, and why? Wrong place, wrong time... With yet another heavy sigh he checks the screen to see how much cargo hold space is available. While the Louhos is desperate to get back to somewhere with actual physics induced gravity he can't deny that potentially missing out on a nearby salvage opportunity was weighing on his mind. Wiping a huge hand across his face Brossu tells TC to cross reference the rumours regarding the salvage with the available cargo space and if it is still profitable to plot a course that would allow him to at least take a look, either way "Let's the get hell out of here"... after all, profit is profit! That done he sits back and records a comms message for Rev, not wanting to have a direct conversation if at all possible he is astute enough to know when he has put someones nose out of joint - "Rev, apologies for telling TC to go straight to Vaina, will route through you for all future comms. Would appreciate a full security report for the ships internal layout if you have the time, Brossu out." Rev replies to Brossu, “No apology needed, just have respect for Vaina, who incidentally provided us with information that might allow the ship to avoid danger in the future.” Attached with the message is a file detailing the security of the ship which he grades fairly well with the number of combat efficient individuals. At the end of the file he points a few safety violations however that can easily be fixed if you spend a few credits. He sends another message to Genesis, “Thank you for the information, it puts my mind to ease.” After handling his messages he rests for a moment trying to recover from the headache, after a bit he opens a virtual whiteboard with a big title screen flashing the word “Danger” repeatedly, Vaina knows this is where he has been visually keeping track of information on the Tiki-Tiki Corp. He expands the board to include the GSEC and the sisters. He also has a smaller area designated for security information for the ship. He studies the board for a time, contemplating different concerns he has. A few red alerts come to his mind. Obviously Rev goes to his guide for assistance, “Vaina I need a bit of help to put my mind at ease, if you wouldn’t mind. Did we leave any evidence of what Genesis did for the GSEC to find? What she did seems fairly pervasive and powerful, would you advise we do something while we are in range?” The file that Rev supplies is very detailed and specific. Vaina sits in the virtual corner with her little notepad and makes notes while Rev works on his mental whiteboard. Vaina moves over to stand next to Rev and reaches out to trace a few lines from GSEC and it's satellite companies then tilts her head briefly before dragging a red line between two companies that have similar names and puts a question mark in the middle of the line “Rev dear, potential crossmatch” then when he askes his question about Genesis, she gets a pensive look on her face “I really don't know. She used nanos and they always leave an indicator of their use. She has power at her finger tips. All I can recommend is keep our heads down and stay out of sight. You know I would normally recommend a burn and run but right now our options are limited so I would recommend just to sit tight but stay alert”. Nator Ranx stops work on the powerbank project long enough to grab a cold shower, a huge mug of coffee and a couple of uppers before resuming work. Cyrus spends time with the sisters but only Atropos is the only one that has time to spare. Moving slowly and gentle is not something he is use to but with her being a walking weapon, he makes the effort. Genesis waits and is bored with nothing happening for the next 6hrs. She splits her time between hanging around on the bridge which irritates Brossu, checking on Cyrus which cramps his style some, wandering the corridors before ending up in the common room alone. TC spends a few seconds cross checking the rumours against the remaining cargo space and comes up with a rough figure “Boss, if the rumours are close to accurate, we will have to make a regular trip once a week with all the cargo holds empty for about a year to make a dent. From the scattered bits of info I gleaned it was a pilgram classed jammer that was on the way to setup a colony”. Oda clicks a bit in his native tongue then switches to trade language “Course plotted and laid in. Engaging hyperdrive in 10..9...8...etc”. TC's voice comes over the intercomm “We are going to jump in 10secs so put your head between you legs and kiss your !$@$%%$ (louhos langauge) goodbye” then a few seconds later the humming of the ship changes and TC's voice comes back “We are now in hyperspace. For those that kissed their !$@$%%$ (louhos langauge) goodbye, I would recommend going to the nearest lavatory and washing your lips”. Two days later, everyone feels the slight change in the humming of the ship which indicates coming out of hyperspace. Nate had finished up his work and now TC has two powerbanks to work with which means she can drop out of hyperspace and almost immediately jump back in if needed. Cloey and Lachesis both want to get the small reactor core, that was salvaged, setup and running but the proper equipment is not to be found on the ship. TC alerts Brossu that they are at the salvage site and the rumoured ship is located “It looks to be split in two but otherwise it appears to be mostly whole”.

Chapter 2 Nator Ranx groggily pulls the images from the external cameras to his terminal screen. After studying the dead ship Nate heads to the bridge to find Brossu. "Hey boss, I have a fucking idea, we take that big fucker apart and turn it into a huge cargo bay that we can fly the fuck back to the station!" Looking around the bridge Nate continues, "Think about it, we have extra power banks, an extra reactor and all that material to recycle into a smaller ship where it sits!" Nate sprawls in a chair and falls asleep waiting for a reply. Genesis traverses the ship in search for something, ANYTHING, to do. She looks out to see the ship they are to salvage, marking points of interest in her head. Cyrus decides to let the sister go and returns to his bunk, plopping down on his bed and awaiting the buzz to leave the ship. Brossu Berkesto squints at the wreck ahead of the ship, glances at some scanner read outs and looks back at Nator with interest. "I'm not going to lie to you, I like the way you think but do you really think that thing could fly? It's in two parts!" Taking another look out at the ship he makes a decision "TC scan the wreck for signs of power, life or anything else of interest and provide Nator with a report on whether or not his plan could work somehow. If it's not a goer at least we can try to get the most valuable bits on board and come back on our next pass through this system." Continuing to look at the wreck Brossu can't help but wonder what happened here... pirates wouldn't have left this much salvage, a large asteroid hit possibly but scanners and shields should have prevented that... "TC, what do you make of this, something doesn't sit right with me...?" TC's voice comes over the intercom everywhere but the bridge “Everyone report to the bridge”. TC's voice sounds through the bridge comm “I'm to far out to get anything detailed but there is a faint power signature still radiating from the ship. Sir we are being hailed from the ship. Putting it on audio”. A Nibiran voice is heard faintly while sounds of static crackle across the broadcast “"Uhmm yes, hello. Assistance required. Repeat. Assistance required. Multiple critical failures and limited defenses. Mobility lost. Send aid at once." TC speaks back up after the broadcast “It is looping the same message but there are coordinates where to dock. It is on the aft section of the wreck and it appears that is where the power signature is coming from”. TC highlights the debris field "I have no data to conjecture about what caused the destruction but the debris field looks like it came from an explosion. From this distance (the rear of the aft section highlights) it appears that the hyperdrive was destroyed. Sorry but not enough information to make a conclusion on what happened". TC brings a close up display of the center of the ship. Brossu Berkesto studies the close up for a short time... "TC highlight the source of the signal and give control to Oda, Oda begin to slowly manoeuvre us into position to get a better look at the proposed dock area but keep a sensible distance. Once the crew arrive we'll see what they think of this thing..." Rev gets to the bridge. "Do we have a smaller ship we could take to look around?" Nator wakes up, glares at Brossu and Rev. "Since you three don't seem likely to let a man sleep I'll take Rover and go take a look at whatever is in that beast of a ship keeping me awake!" Nate stomps to head to get rid of the old coffee on his way to the galley, downs a few uppers with a pot of coffee before climbing into Rover and heading off to the bigger ship. Brossu Berkesto turns to Cyrus and tells him to man the ships weapons should Nator require cover. Quickly assessing potential threats to his ship, and therefore its cargo... and more importantly his profits, Brossu then gives a sidelong look at Genesis, "I'm not sure how that nano-doo-hicky you've got works but if it's got range is there any way to sweep that ship for potential non-organic threats? Hell, if you can do organics too that would be just dandy!" Getting onto his comms Brossu sends a quick message to Nator ~No heroics out there, take a look and get back safe... you've an eye for salvage that i'd hate to lose!~ Nator circles the crippled ship at a safe distance looking hard at the split line and the engine bays. Nate radios back to Trashcan, "Hey boss, this thing's a mess, give me some time, a hyperdrive and a power cell and we can fly her to one of the stations. Heading inside to look around now." Nate finds the shuttle bay airlock and attempts to slip enter the ship. Genesis looks to Brossu as Cyrus gives a quick nod and mounts the guns. "I am not without limitations. If I were to do as you ask, I would need to be outside. If we do not have a spacesuit handy I could form one with the nanobots, but it would limit how much I can do. It depends on how badly you want it scanned. Either way, if we board it, I should come with regardless." Rev ignores Nator most of the time and lets him go, his recent headaches have been causing him some distress and new concerns. He would enjoy having people to be concerned about again if not for the fact that he was busy worrying about the GSEC after three or possibly four members of his crew. When he realizes that Nator leaves he slowly stares at Brossu waiting for an obvious order, when instead he gives the exact opposite his eyes widened. From behind the blue reflect helmet that hides his face, Rev bites his lower lip and closes his eyes. He makes another note on his private board on the security ship. "Sir could we get closer ourselves and allow TC to scan? That would not only reduce the distance Genesis needs to cover if you still feel its necessary but aid her with some clues to concentrate her search. Further it would free Nator to focus his time on his project." During the time that Nator is traveling to the ship and looking it over, Oda is cautiously moving the mule in while TeeCee is attempting to communicate with anyone inside the ship “Ahoy Atropa, this is salvage vessel TRSHCN125596492. You said you are in need of assistance. Please designate where we can dock in order to facilitate assisting you”. As the ship gets closer, TC is able to refine her scans and can pinpoint sections that have power and live support. The entire front half of the ship is without power or lifesupport but key areas in the rear section has power and lifesupport. TC highlights a service airlock that is dockable for the Rover to use but sends a message to Nate also “Nate, this airlock {airlock highlighted on his display} has power and has the right docking clamps for your Rover but do not enter just yet. If there are survivors, we must get their permissions first otherwise we are acting just like what we experienced with the warbots”. TC broadcasts to the bridge and everyone on it along with Nate on his speakers “Since we are now in closer proximity to the vessel Atropa, I can now form a speculative opinion on what damaged the ship”. In the background of Rev's mind he hears the murmuring of Vaina and TeeCee talking and discussing various aspects of the salvage up to and including what effect taking survivors onboard would have on the lifesupport of the ship. Nator stands by waiting for permission to board the Atropa Brossu Berkesto still isn't comfortable with this, ~it all seems too... convenient~ he thinks over and over. Registering the comment from Rev, and the carefully neutral tone it was delivered in he turns to the human first "Rev, my name is Brossu not 'sir', and while I may be captain of this ship I am just a trader with a taste for salvage. Despite this crew being a result of circumstance rather than preference, there are certain talents that you all possess that I simply can't comprehend at this time. To that end Rev consider yourself promoted to official Chief Security Officer, take Cyrus as a right hand..." glancing askance at the ever silent and imposing Atropos "That one can be your secret weapon I reckon... TC, increase Rev's permissions appropriately but anything that affects any programmed courses will need final confirmation from yours truly." That dealt with, his brain now speeding up with the sheer number of things to consider as a new crew begins to find it's place, Brossu turns to Genesis and raises an eye ridge "In a way it's a relief to know that you have limitations, I'm happier with you on board rather than floating around out there but suffice to say you'll be coming aboard when we dock... Oda, take us closer" and over comms to Nator "If TC gives the all clear dock but don't go far, we'll come in hot on your tail, but first Teece, what's your opinion on the cause?" Mauze spots a steady blip on the comm panel and receives a message. “Ahoy Atropa, this is salvage vessel TRSHCN125596492. You said you are in need of assistance. Please designate where we can dock in order to facilitate assisting you”.wipes the fog off a small viewing port and scans the void. Sure enough, there she is. Another ship at last. He slaps the comm open a Mauze He slaps the comm open and responds immediately. "Receiving you TRSHCN125596492. Our rear cargo hold is functional. Others are accessible. But life support there isn't. Sending coordinates." Mauze releases a multi-interface from his belt and plugs it into the comm panel. A few calculations later and the coordinates are away. He turns to leave, but stops.What was it Jenny reprimanded him for... "Mnmm.. Yes, and TRSHCN... You have our thanks." Rev while waiting for TC to explain the situation. "Genesis, you could ask one of the sisters to build you a barrier that holds in oxygen while your taking a walk outside. Would allow you to focus your power on a task, plus I would feel better if you had an energy barrier protecting you. Just a suggestion since you seem to brave enough to go out there." Nator hears Mauze reply to Trashcan and eases Rover into the airlock, where he secures Rover and proceeds into the ship. Brossu Berkesto beams at Oda, "Seems like you might have a new friend old buddy, I've never met a Nibiran I didn't like so lets get down there shall we. I'm pretty sure our new Chief of Security will keep us safe in the mean time..." activating his comms Brossu hails Nator: "Try not to 'salvage' anything until we establish what the hell is going on here and keep your wits about you, this could still turn sour at any moment". Teece starts working on revising all the security protocols to include Rev and Vaina new status while hooking into the body cam feed from Nate so that everyone can see what he sees and puts it on a monitor near everyone while the comm feed from Mauze is put on the open channel to include everyone but sends a private comm to Nate to notify him that it is an open comm. Teece cuts Mauze out of the feed briefly to state her hypothesis “Open comm limited to no feed to Mauze but we can still hear him. Nate be careful. Even with lifesupport being active in your area there could be damage that my scanners are not picking up. From what I scanned, it appeared to be a non-nuclear explosion set off in the mid-section of the ship while secondary explosion destroyed the drive engines. Of the two core reactors the aft one remained functional while the bow reactor went offline. How much damage is done internally is unknown but I can gather more information due to Rover is now inside the vessel and I can remotely use it's scanners, if Nate allows it”. Cloey speaks over the comm “We have one marker beacon but I think I could create another in time but anyway if this find would make us filthy rich in creds” then Lachesis speaks up from her spot near the engineering terminal while Atropos stands quietly nearby “Atty has no problem helping out with security, Rev. Just give her orders and she will follow them as long as it does not threaten our freedom”. On Oda and Brossu's montior three airlocks are highlighted in yellow while the location where Rover is at is glowing blue and a small green dot is pulsing near Rover. Text scrolls on the monitor stating yellow is powered airlocks but no lifesupport, Rover is blue, and Nate is green. The text continues “There is a slow atmosphere leak” with the location glowing red “ something upset the pattern of debris. All indications is that a vessel moved through the area recently but none of found on scans so I'm assuming it left the area. There are no marker beacons broadcasting”. Nator replies to TeeCee on the private channel, "Feel free to make use of Rover's sensors as well as my own TeeCee. Boss, somethin is very, very odd here, cover my ass will ya?" Switching to the open channel Nate addresses Mauze, "Nate here, I am in the designated airlock and heading into your ship. What is the quickest route to you?" Nate cycles the airlock and enters the ship with his suit still on. Mauze waits for a return message in the makeshift command deck but none comes. Incoming comms could be down, he thinks. Suddenly, he notices a substantial drop in pressure at the rear of the ship. He clicks a button to issue a ship-wide broadcast. Hopefully the systems are still functional... "Uhm yes hello. If you are on board and receiving, exercise caution. Life support is limited. Communications are limited. We few are contained in the aft of the ship. Find a functional comm panel and reveal your location. I will aid you personally.. Erhm... That is all. Mauze out." Brossu Berkesto orders TC to navigate the ship to the nearest 'safe' docking bay before telling everyone who is coming aboard, and at this he sends a message to Cloey and Lachesis telling them to keep the ship in a ready state and monitor the readouts along with TC should anything unexpected occur. Grabbing Oda and signalling to the others he suggests they get suited up in case of total life support failure and join him at the loading bay ready to head onboard. "TC, see if you can get through to our host and establish just how many survivors there are, also tell Nate to be prepared to get back to Rover in case of complete depressurisation. Rev, suggestions on best course of action would be welcomed if you would be so kind..." Nator hears Mauze's message over the intercom system and upon locating the nearest panel replies, "Hello, Nate here, I am at comm unit W3-22, advise on what you need me to do." Genesis waits calmly near the exit of the ship, waiting for the ship to be docked. Cyrus sits at the ships guns should there be more things to shoot. Mauze jumps up excitedly and speaks again into the broadcast system. "Greetings Nate.Are you alone or with others? Our ship is far beyond repair. Perhaps it would be best to first meet face-to-face and establish a link between our crews. It seems to me that this could determine our next course of action. If this plan is acceptable, you must head past the cargo hold, through what once were sleeping quarters and up to the remnants of our main deck." Mauze adds, "Be advised that until the main deck there will be no active life support. Take caution." Nator notices that the air is thin and stale where he is located at indicating that lifesupport in this area is not functioning fully or there is a small leak in the hull somewhere. Oda slowly and gently docks TC's body with the Atropa in the location TC highlighted on his navigation console “Boss, Teece's sensors show there is no atmosphere on the other side this airlock even though there is power running to it. Could be a hole in the hull somewhere or just lifesupport being disabled due to lack of use so that the limited power is conserved”. Atropo shows up at the airlock dressed in a spacesuit along with a spare one in case Genesis needed it. Teece opens the comm back up to Mauze “Mauze is it? My captain is needing to know how many survivors, counting you, are there and to let you know that he is coming aboard to facilitate a rescue operation”. On the Gunnery console, TC is updating and highlighting debris that is on a path that could lead to potential impact with her body giving Cyrus enough time to shoot the debris if needed before it can hit the ship. Nator replies to Mauze, "Currently it is just me, but more of the crew is heading this way. Once we are together we will head up to the main deck so we don't have to cycle the airtight doors too many times." On the private channel Nate addresses the crew, "Be advised, there is no life support on the lower decks and we will need to go up to the main deck. I am waiting to join up to save as much air as possible." Nate looks around trying to figure out the best way to salvage the Atropos. Teece indicates that her body (the groups ship) is docked a deck below where Rover is located "This will allow us to break free of the vessel if needed". Mauze to Teecee: "There are but twelve of us now." Rev thinks for a moment as he seals his armor ready to get on the ship, to Brossu, "I advise continuous communication with the survivors, someone confirming their identities, finding the cause of the wreck, and haste, especially if we aren't getting paid." Brossu Berkesto is startled back to the present when Rev mentions about not getting paid, he had been lost in thought about the potential income if Nator's salvage plan was possible but realising that the survivors might have something to say about that he was considering all of the 'reward' income that might be extracted for saving them... "TC, keep in touch with the survivors, request ID's and do what checks you can, continue to scan and see if you can confirm the numbers based on life readings. Also, relay any communication received back through our comms, it might give us all a headache from the echo but if they are having internal comms issues I don't want to miss anything or be reliant on fixed panels when on board." Contacting Lachesis and Cloey he instructs them to keep the ship ready and to assist TC with monitoring their progress as well as further evaluating the cause of the wreck. "Right everyone, suits on, lets get aboard and catch up to Nator before he runs out of atmosphere... oh and someone bring him a suit too please?" Nator checks his suit's oxygen tank level before heading to the elevator to meet the rest of the crew who are coming aboard the Atropos. As the landing party forms up and goes through the Airlock Nate is already discovering that the elevator is not powered up. Opening the maintenance shafts hatch, he looks down and grunts under his breath but over his comm something about big men, pitch dark tiny shafts, and the effect of having to wedge his way through them. Everyone, as part of the prep of suiting up, checks their power supplies and another member's power supply. Everyone checks out for up to 48 hrs of air and power. The corridor that the group steps into is dimly lit with occasionally flickering emergency lights. Brossu can tell at a glance that the few remaining lights will only be functioning for a week, at the most, before their internal power supply is fully exhausted. Wires are hanging down in clumps from where the superstructure collasped. Rev's suit indicates zero atmosphere in this area while Genesis spots a head size hole that stretches through an outer bulkhead and into space. TC warns Nator of vacuum on the other side of a hatch once he reaches the level that is between him and the group. TC has the groups comm open mic to Mauze as the move through the ship and makes a simple statement that is heard by everyone in both ships “Rover's scanners has limited penetration but that section you are in, right below Nate's area, is total vacuum. If Rover is correct there is multiple holes in the hull throughout that section. It looks like the superstructure got crumpled and twisted according to the suit cams that each of you are wearing”. TC pauses then continues “Mauze, is there a way to power up the databanks enough for me to read them? I might be able to find a path using them but it will take time”. Cyrus watches over the monitor all the various debris floating about. (Sharpshooter 16vs 10) Cyrus crinkles his forehead as he watches the debris shift in a manner that would indicate a possibly cloaked ship. Mauze replies, "Possible... Power limited. Attempting to reroute from all non-critical systems." Mauze steps down a deck, walks down a hot corridor and opens a sliding door. A mess of cables and various power sources litter a tightly packed room. Mauze removes a micro-tool from his belt and begins frantically clipping and re-plugging wires into various positions. Mauze reworks the cables to where databank is mostly powered up at the cost of a nasty burn on one of his forearms from an unexpected electrical arc. Over the comm, TC is muttering about the sluggishness of the databank along with the gaping holes in the storage "At this pace, it is going to take days to get any info". Cyrus talks over the comms to the crew "So I don't know how to put this, but the debris is doing some weird shifting. I don't think we are alone." Genesis follows the crew in her suit, keeping her nanobots at the ready should things go sour Just at that moment, Cyrus watches debris bounce off of nothing as it was floating towards an impact on the Atropa hull. Nator squeezes his way down the shaft to the next deck before heading out and meeting up with the main landing party. Cyrus comes back on the comms "Yeah so...now I am 110% sure there is something else out there. I'll keep an eye on it, but watch your backs. I don't think it's friendly. Mauze reels from the discharge grasping at his burnt forearm. "To boarding party.. Apologies. Nothing else can be done from here. I've explored the aft in full. To reach us you must first pass through the cargo bay, on the second level there, you'll find passage to the old living quarters, next you must..." Mauze continues to describe the path over the open comm. "Find the string of lights to the living area. We are here. There is one functional suit on deck. I may aid you should the need arise." Rev takes in the situation. Following the group and paying attention to the directions the survivor has given him. He makes sure he has open communication with Mauze and TC’s crew, “Crew member of the Atropa, why do we need the face to face, is your only issue that you lack the suits to move the others off?” To the crew of TC only he sends a text message, “What should we do about the hidden anomaly? I have an idea but I need more information on the location of this object.” Nator checks all the emergency lockers he can find on the way to the section where the crew is, to gather up a dozen rescue balls, oxygen tanks, and a rope, to safely transport the crew of the Atropos to trashcan. Mauze replies, "Yes. This vessel is lost. There is only one suit for twelve. If you wish to aid our crew, a means of transport is needed." Nator has a hard problem finding all the rescue gear he wants for it seems all the emergency lockers are empty even though they still had the seal on them from the spacestation the ship left from. As Nate approaches the rendezvous point where everyone is going to meet up just prior to entering the living zone area, he notices that all the lockers are standing open and empty as if someone had already searched them. Teecee sends a rough estimate where the anomaly is located at with a text “It will take you some time and effort to reach that area for it is near the edge of the damaged area of the ship. If Cyrus did not spot the debris shift abnormally, I would have missed it for I can not get my sensors to lock on that area even with Cyrus attempting to manually override them” then another text comes over the comm “Cloey thinks it might be a stealth jammer but is not sure who or why it would be here”. Genesis makes her way over to the rendezvous point and glances over everything. "Someone or something was definitely here, maybe even still in the area. Could it be another salvage team?" Nator stomps up to Brossu, looks at him and says, "Hey boss, we have a big problem, all the rescue gear is missing, someone might have to go back to Trashcan and grab some. Whoever inspected this tub set it up for doom, death and destruction!" Nator quickly reads the text about the shifting debris. "Do ya want me to take Rover and go get some rescue balls, or should I go after the stealthy bastards?" Brossu Berkesto rubs a heavy hand over his face ~when did salvage jobs get so complicated~ "Ok everyone, this is where your individual skills are going to come in real handy. We need a solution and we need it quickly. Rev, take the lead on the rescue effort, this seems more your wheelhouse than mine and would you mind asking if Vaina could work with TC to analyse potential rescue options, keeping Nator in the loop should any manual work need doing. Genesis, keep yourself informed and if you wouldn't mind lending your special talents should they become necessary I'd be most appreciative." with a heavy sigh he turns to Oda, "Buddy, get back to Trashcan and round up all the suits and gear you can, get those on board to help out but make sure Cyrus keeps his eye on that anomaly." muttering under his breath he continues "would be easier if we could just cut a hole in the hull near to the trapped crew and dock there, pirate style..." Rev to Vaina, Atty, Nator and Genesis, "I think we five are all that really needs to go. Vaina, can you find a place on the route to the survivors where the Rover could cut through the ship? Nator can you head back on your vessel and bring the supplies needed from the trashcan. Atty and Genesis, if you don't mind I would like to start heading to the survivors and make necessary preparations to support Nator. What do you think?" Nator runs back to Rover and heads back to Trashcan to grab the gear needed to rescue the crew of the Atropos and his plasma rifle. Vaina speaks to Rev in his mind "I wonder how long that jammer has been there? Did it show up before or after us coming out of hyperspace? I can Rev dear but it will take me a while to analyst it all". Atty just nods while rolling her shoulders slightly. Oda scurries back towards the ship with all due haste in an effort to be there waiting for Nator to arrive. TC is quiet for a few moments before speaking up "According to my sensors, there is a failing force bubble on a partially destroyed airlock that is adjoining the crew area. It would make sense to attempt to dock there but without a visual inspection I do not know how viable it actually is. We have plenty spare omnimass since the girls and Nate replace majority of my repairs with actual plating so Nate or Genesis could use it to possibly filli in any of the missing pieces. Nator spots something moving on the ships hull after he undocks Rover and starts flying it over to TrashCan. His sensors did not pickup anything and it was only a flicker of movement but it was not something familiar, it was almost alien like. Nothing changed on the monitor for Cyrus. Genesis nods at Brossu. As she continues, Rev speaks at her "Acknowledged. I imagined that would be first priority." She looks back at Brossu "Say the word and I can do whatever you ask of me, though I would prefer to reserve some energy in case I am needed for healing or fighting. What I have may be powerful, but it is also draining." Nator takes note of just where he thought he saw the movement to investigate after delivering the rescue balls. Nate hastily docks Rover and raids the closest emergency lockers for supplies to take back to Apropos. Once all the gear is secured Nate races back to the airless corridor closest to the inhabitable area and starts making an opening with his plasma cutters. Brossu Berkesto acknowledges Rev's assessment of the situation with a nod, his respect of this human growing with each interaction. "Genesis, take Atropos and inspect the potential docking site. Be careful and keep in constant contact with TC if it is something we can fix, or at least make usable, get Nator onto is as soon as possible. I'll head back to Trashcan and get ready to issue the order to bring her around. Hopefully by then Rev will have made contact with the survivors and have an extraction plan finalised." Starting to walk away he mutters to himself as always ~A simple salvage opportunity, sure... when has anything ever been simple!~ Genesis gives a short nod of approval before moving with Atropos towards the docking station Cyrus continues to watch the anomoly with interest "What I wouldn't give to have some popcorn or flavor fizzles to munch on." Nator moves down to a likely area to start cutting while Genesis and Atty move down a different corridor towards an airlock that is unpowered. Atty is carrying a spare powerpack she spotted laying near the airlock while heading out. Once Genesis and Atty reach the airlock, Atty hefts the pack while gesturing at the lock. Nator starts to apply the cutter to the wall when a faint voice is heard over a private comm “Hello . Can you hear me? This is Vaina. Don't start cutting yet please. Can you locate Genesis and Atty? For some reason the comms are starting to get interference.” Brossu hears TC over the comm “Boss. Som is csg *ference.” Vaina speaks to Rev in a crisp almost military tone “Comm interference has been initiated. Probability of hostile unknown contact is increasing. My connection to TC is being block.” The comm connection that Mauze had with the group begins to get interference. Mauze looses contact with the being called TC but still retains a clear comm with Nator through various intercoms but others in the group could be reach by intercoms once they are made aware of them. Cyrus had just settled in comfortably at the monitor when the feed starts to fizzle then becomes all static filled and TC's worried filled voice comes over her intercom “Cyrus, I'm blind and going deaf. I'm loosing comm with the group. I have the line of sight optics going online but that only gives us a visual around the immediate area of us.” and the monitors at the gunnery console light up to show the surrounding area around the ship. Cyrus has about 100yds view out from the ship. Nator hurriedly cuts a hole in the double hull just big enough to drop the rescue equipment through while trying to raise Genesis and Atty on his radios, shoves the gear into the Atropos and jets over to where he had sen the movement. Genesis fiddles with her comm unit, talking to Addy "I believe we are on our own at the moment. I'll keep a lookout, but I think we should wait until we get communications back up." Brossu Berkesto storms back onto the bridge as the comms finally fail "I don't like this at all, I think we should get moving round to the potential docking point nearer the survivors, when things get out of hand we'll need to extract quick and clean. Those on the Atropa will just have to fend for themselves if there are hostiles, hopefully they'll link up with the survivors, safety in numbers etc!" Turning to Cyrus he asks a blunt question "What would you do space cowboy? I'm in half a mind to approach that anomaly you spotted and see if we can pick something up on the scanners or at least flush them out of hiding?" Holding a sausage like finger up to prevent Cyrus from replying straight away he gets onto the internal comms and instructs Lachesis to see if her and her 'sister' can't come up with some why of reversing the polarity of the ships scanners to attempt to disrupt the disrupters or some other such technical nonsense... Once done he turns back to Cyrus with a raised eye ridge, "Well? What'd'ya think?" Cyrus stumbles a bit before replying "Uh well....I agree, that anomoly should be brought to light, but what of those still in the ship? Wouldn't it be dangerous for them if we startle a potential threat?" Brossu Berkesto mulls it over, "You may have a point, but the longer we sit here the more that threat is preparing to 'be' a threat. We'll see what Lachesis suggests about hopefully disrupting the cloaking and jamming before acting which will hopefully give those inside time to assess the docking area and make contact with the survivors." With his customary sigh Brossu drops heavily into the captain's chair and stares at the limited visuals intently looking for any signs of the anomaly. Nator brings Rover to over where he thought there was movement when Rover's sensors start to get statically and acting strange. Within moments, Nator is flying by his own sight instead of sensors while chunks of debris float about him (some nearly collide with Rover). Bringing online his craft cameras. Nator spotted a flicker of something crawling into a small hull hole to dissappear inside the Atropa. It was not a person in a suit but something else, something alien like. Addy nods then shrugs while still holding the powerpack outstretched towards Genesis "Go in and meet them?" TC speaks up after Brossu sighs and settles in his chair "Boss, I'm blind other than limited optics. All my sensors are jammed. Oda will have to fly me if you want to move us to the other location. I still think us hooking up to the one spot with the failing force bubble would be the best spot for it would stop the potential enviromental lost and ease the movement of the survivors. Oda glances up from the helm "Say the word, Boss, and I will move her to whereever you want her to go". Lachesis speaks up "Brossu, With the scanners being jammed from an outside source I can not unjam them. Someone will have to go to the source and shut it down." Brossu sits staring at his monitor where is shows swirling debris floating through the area and the Atropa hull. Mauze comm has grown quiet and all his cobbled together sensors are offline for they seem to be jammed. Brossu Berkesto thumps the arms of his chair. "Dammit, this is ridiculous. I hate being blind like this. Oda get us round there, I get the feeling things are going to go horribly wrong any time now and I'd like to think we can get those, hopefully grateful, survivors out and get back on track... I'm losing profit here every damn minute." Turning to Cyrus he lets out a customary sigh, "Waitings over human, keep your eyes open but don't fire unless a threat is identified, we don't want another war-bot situation on our hands!" Over the comms again Brossu beseeches Lachesis "Any chance you could reprogram something to send out a targeted EMP, if we can use sufficient shielding to channel the pulse in a set direction that misses the location of the survivors we could try to knock out the jammer? Shoot me down if you like, I'm a trader not a scientist..." Nator flies to the hole the shape entered and uses his plasma cutters to open the hole large enough to fit Rover into. Genesis nods her approval and goes to meet them. Cyrus grins "Ain't life a bitch?" he says while keeping an eye on the anomaly. He doesn't say it, but it can be seen that he's nervous. Mauze returned to the survivors, now all huddled in their mostly defunct operations room. No one was speaking. There was nothing but expectant silence. He found Jenny sat with legs folded propped against the hull. Mauze took a seat next to her. After a quick scan to make sure no eyes were on him, Mauze unhooked his backpack and reached in. "Here. Take this. In case..." He swiftly pulled the lone spacesuit and slid it behind her. "I will check the shield malfunction again... I do not wish to wait here any longer.. I will help our rescuers dock." He stood and turned without meeting her eyes, and walked towards congo deck. The normal comings and goings in their small habitat were completely absent. It was strangly peaceful. Upon reaching the bubble shield, he gazed beyond the orange wall of energy and looked into the void for any signs of another ship. Lachesis speaks up “Brossu, you're right, you ain't no scientist. Even with the best top of the line material to be used, there would be overspill with the weapon. Not only would we get hit by it, anything behind the unknown would get hit and since I don't know how powerful that jammer is, I would have to build our emp as powerful as I could which would probably penetrate through the Atropa hull and out the other side. Remember the Atropa doesn't have shields anymore so there is only hull material protecting her. Nator looks down through his cockpit glass and sees that he is staring down into a corridor inside the Atropa. He could probably fit Rover inside and move about but there would be no space for turning around and there is a good chance he would run into an obstruction or get jammed in the corridor. Genesis and Atty open the outer door and climb into the crudely made airlock. Genesis can feel that this airlock was built with a large amount of omnimass and parts of the external hull. Once inside and the outer door is close, Atty hooks up the power supply to the controls that regulate the air pump and begins the cycling. Minutes later the door unlatches and allows itself to be swung open. After closing the airlock door behind them, Atty started to remove her helmet and look around. As Mauze stands looking out the bubble shield, multiple alerts ping on his internal sensors monitor. The first alert is a brief environmental breach that sealed itself apparently. It was almost on the other end of the pressurized chambers when the hydroponic chambers are at. The leak was brief enough that the blast doors did not drop to seal off that section. The second alert was about a nearby airlock being cycled. It is the one located near the animal growth tanks and farm chambers. The waste recycling chambers are near there also. Mauze knows that airlock is just 8 hallways over and 6 levels down and there is a working intercom just down the hallway from the airlock, just before the first livestock chamber. Oda is cycling up the navigation panel and working a flight path. Cyrus is watching the monitor with his hands resting on the weapons controls, waiting for a target to shoot. Nator tethers Rover to a handhold on the hull of the Atropa and after checking the power levels of his fully charged plasma rifle and vibro-blade enters the corridor to hunt down the critter. Mauze runs to the nearest functional comm unit and patches through to the one nearest the cycled airlock. "If someone is there, respond... Just down the hall. Follow my voice." Brossu Berkesto slumps sulkily into his chair, impotent rage simmering beneath the surface. ~Whatever this is, it is gonna pay for any profit lost with this detour...~ (To GM): shadow vessel defense 16 (To GM): shadow Alien camouflage 14 Oda releases the docking clamps after sealing the airlock and nudges the trashcan off the hull then engages the thrusters to shift the ship over the hull towards the chosen location when without warning sensor alarms start blaring. TC comes over the intercom to those in her “Alert, Alert. Alien craft in visual” and on the main screen the image of the ship, on the hull of the Atropa, looking like an alien tick “I still have no sensor read on it but visuals have a lock” which at that moment, the weapon monitor that Cyrus is at, an image feed appears with a targeting crosshairs floating near it. (TN 15 if an attack is done) Nator floats down the corridor looking for the alien but lost it's trail at the intersection where there is 3 other corridors and several access points to other decks by ruptures in the floor and ceiling. (TN15 if detection/tracking is attempted). Atty's nose wrinkles as she takes a breath of the air then speaks in her typical fashion “Animals nearby” then her head whips around as she locks her gaze on a distant intercom that has a voice coming from it. Cyrus looks at Brossu "I have them in my sights. Say the word and I'll initiate, but...the girls are still in there." Nator: Nator uses his mad hunting skillz to track the alien critter /roll 5 in an attempt to capture it... Genesis looks towards the intercom as well and stands up slowly "Hostile?" she asks nonchalantly. Oda continues drifting Trashcan past the alien vessel in a nonchalant manner TC speaks through the speakers on the targeting monitor "Cyrus, for some reason I can not get a lock on that ship so it is going to be all you. Cloey and Lachesis have a direct power feed to weapons and shields so we are good for a fight. Atty shrugs at Genesis's question and gestures down the hall towards the voice as the sounds of a bovine is heard. TC speaks quietly to Brossu on his speakers at his chair "Boss, the girls in engineering have set me up with a direct power feed from the core to the weapons and shields for an extended fight if needed. I still can get a lock on the vessel so it all boils down to Cyrus being able to hit the target. I also want to remind you that we do have personal still in that ship and Nator is no where to be found. Sensor log shows he was here then left in his Rover but with the sensors being jammed, I do not know where he is at nor can I reach him with the comm as it is jammed also". Nator glances about in an attempt to find any sign of the alien but there is nothing to indicate which way it went. Peering through the tears in the floor and ceiling only reveals more corridors full of debris. Nator cautiously makes his way back to the hole where he had parked Rover. Brossu Berkesto places a heavy hand on Cyrus' shoulder "Keep that thing in your sights and be prepared to return fire if any signs of hostility are evident, I'm not prepared to risk blowing more holes in the hull of the Atropa while we still have crew in there somewhere. If they open fire, try to aim for their weapons in turn, see if we can't minimise their ability to cause us harm." Turning to Oda he continues, "Buddy, take us to the new docking site and get in position. If Nator and Genesis have found a way for us to dock I want to be in position as soon as possible..." Half-muttering to himself he adds "actually I want to be somewhere with solid ground and a drink, preferably with a pocket full of credits..." turning to the visual sensor on the bridge he considers to be TC's primary 'eye' he practically begs "Keep attempting to establish contact with the others, every known frequency, some that you've made up... hell even get those below decks painting a banner to hang on the front of the damn ship if need be!" Nator makes it back to the rover with ease only to notice the Trashcan moving slowly off in the distance in what looks to a direction that is leading towards the other side of the Atropa. Atty and Genesis move down the corridor towards the voice. As they do, they notice the various animal smells growing stronger and the noises getting louder. The first open doorway is a large cargo doorway that has a makeshift gate stretched across it and behind it is something that Genesis only read about. It is a hexabovine which is a genetically modified cow designed to withstand higher gravity. They are usually very aggressive due to have part of their genetic code coming from the Longhorn stock. Atty and Genesis counts 4 stirring about in the large cargo room that is covered in straw as they move by. The next room is the one with the intercomm where the voice is coming from and it appears to be a stardard sized room as they peer their the mesh like door at the fowls that are making a strange clucking sounds. These birds are about 30 lb in size with what appears to be razor sharp talons on their feet. Again they appear to have been genetically modified for high gravity and Genesis thinks these are what people would call chickens. Atty reaches up and taps the intercom "Hello"? Oda keeps the ships flight straight and true without hurrying while Cyrus spots the Rover nearby the Alien ship. The Rover was semihidden behind some ruptured hull plating that was peeled upward from the internal damage it seemed. Mauze: to voice from the intercom: "Yes, hello. This is Mauze. Erm.. maybe you heard me earlier. I spoke to someone on your ship. Pleased you're aboard safely. Please head straight up the shaft to the aft section. It will be on your right, past our stocks. Look for me on the way. I know this ship well. Will guide you safely." Mauze closes the channel and heads towards the cargo doorway, keeping an eye out for the rescuers. (From Mauze): I forgot to /me the post... sorry >_< Nator takes position at the tear in the hull with his plasma rifle aimed into the corridor while waiting for the critter to come back out. Genesis looks around the room, "It smells like crap in here." she said with no emotion. After the voice tells them what to do, she goes to follow his directions "There is something off about this situation. Be on your guard." Brossu Berkesto attempts to check for any interstellar frequencies that might be carrying the latest void jammer racing odds while waiting for Oda to manoeuvre TC into position for docking... realising too late that the jammer would prevent even that from being achieved he throws his PDA into the corner with a grunt of disgust and slumps further into his chair, frustration beginning to boil over with the futility of this endeavour... Nator settles in for a long boring wait as he watches the empty corridor while the Trashcan slowly maneuvers pass his position in the direction of the hull breech that a failing force bubble is position on the other side of the ship. Genesis and Atty move past the other livestock holding rooms and finds the shaft that the being Mauze mentioned. The corridor continues on in the distance but one can smell plant life such as grains and vegetables so it seems they have various hydroponics rooms also. Up the ladder the two girls climb almost 6 levels when they come to a level where a Nibirian is standing nearby. At first it look almost like Oda but Genesis realizes that there is slight differences that set the two apart. Mauze spots the strange looking woman pop up through the shaft. One towers over the other but it is the smaller one of the two that Mauze thinks is more dangerous or so his kind's instincts scream at him. Oda glances at Brossu and the shattered pda “Boss just calm down. The girls will be fine. Remember Gen and her ability plus she has Atty backing her up. Nator is probably fine also”. Cyrus interrupts Oda “Actually he is down below up or his rover is” and brings up an image of the rover parked behind a peeled up hull plating but the Rover is also near the location of the Alien ship. TC speaks up on the bridge intercom “The only crew member that I'm worried for is Rev. I have not heard from Rev nor Vaina since the jamming and they were in the Atropa also. As long as the jamming stays active, I can not communicate with them”. Nator holds his position watching the corridor Mauze spots the two women and does a double-take. Mauze stands just shy of 5ft., scrawny, a typical Nibiryan build. He adjusts his goggles as his tail sweeps back and forth nervously. He sizes up the pair. "Hello humans... Pleased to see- Uh..." Why is that one's face scrunched up like that, he thinks to himself. Mauze lifts an arm and takes a couple whiffs before shrugging it off. "Yes. Well... How did you locate our ship? We've been here many cycles. Most had lost hope." Genesis looks at the weird creature before her. "Our boss located it. You can ask him when we see him. What is with all of the....animals here?" she asked referring to the ones they just passed. Brossu Berkesto continues to scan the visual displays. "TC, with your sensors jammed how will we be set for docking?" Mauze: Addresses the human, "Our food supplies were deleted. Another crew member found a way to extend the life of these creatures... artificially. Her skills in bio-genetics, they're... Ermm not good.. she was successful, but problems manifested." Mauze pauses a moment and nervously drums his digits together. "Oh! Uhm.. I am Mauze. Come." He pivots on his foot as he continues, "I'll lead you to our deck." He begins to shuffle through the corridors towards the survivors quarters. Genesis follows the weird creature, keeping an eye on anything strange, other than the past things she saw such as animals on a spaceship. The trashcan moves to the other side of the wreck and Oda spots the location of the failing forcebubble. With a deft touch he slowly maneuvers the ship in for a closer inspection and, after mumering with TC, extends the airlock docking tube. After a slight shudder of the ship coming to rest, Oda relaxes briefly “Boss, we are docked and locked. Lachesis and her sister are down at the airlock, using some of the omnimass to make a temporary patch to prevent any environmental leaks”. Nator waits and watches while growing bored by the minute. Shifting slightly to glance over at the alien ship sitting about 200 meters away, he swears he saw the ships skin ripple like it was breathing. One of it's wispy tentacle/arm/ whatever you want to call it, flexes and shifts slightly, almost in response to Nator's watching of it. A sharp ringing noise sounds from Mauze's belt and he realizes it is the proximity alarm at the forcebubble. Something is coming towards the bubble and if that bubble fails, everyone is dead due to vacuum. Genesis and Atty both hear the ringing from Mauze's belt while they are traveling through the various corridors and tubes. The animal pens have been left behind along with their smells and sounds but now there are signs of habitation. Clothing is strung out drying in some rooms, sleeping pallets are left unmade, sounds of people moving about nearby. Nator uses his mad fighting skills to take aim at the alien ship and let off a burst from his plasma rifle. Mauze Flinches at the sharp alarm. Mauze looks down to see it's the shield. "Sloppy! We should have had more time!" He hops 180 degrees to face the two humans. He eyes are intense and his beak agape. "We must run... Now!" Mauze pivots back around and begins madly plunging through various corridors and tubes back towards congo deck. He removes a comically large wrench from his belt and clangs it against the walls as he runs. "All crew! Gather your things! Hurry, hurry!" Brossu Berkesto pats Oda on the back for his deft piloting of the ship into position. "Once we are docked I'm going aboard and getting our people out." Heading off to get suited up again he continues over the comma "Cyrus, shoot anything that tries to interfere with us but keep an eye out for Nator in his pet mini-ship, Oda have us ready to leave just as soon as everyone is on board, there are a million places I'd rather be right now." Getting to the airlock he checks with Chloey and Lachesis about their work and prepares to board... As an afterthought he grabs a large crowbar and hefts it in his massive hands ~you never know someone might stuck or just reluctant to move...~ Genesis follows the weird alien thing through the corridors, keeping an eye out for any danger Cyrus focuses his attention on his screen and keeps an eye on anything that is potentially dangerous to their ship and the one Genesis is on. Cyrus watches as what appears to be a small plasma burst appear for a moment where the alien ship and Nator was last seen. Mauze, Genesis, and Atty scramble through the maze of corridors while Mauze is banging his wrench on anything to raise a ruckus. A handful of people poke their heads out of various rooms then upon hearing the message being yelled, dart back into their room before running after the three. Once the group reaches a rather large open area, they see rickety scaffolding assembling up the side of a jagged, rippled wall only to realize they are looking up through a ripped open hole in the floors above them. Almost 40 ft above them appears to be a flickering, sparking force field generator. Gathered behind the three of them is a dozen people of various ages, physical conditions, and species. Brossu opens the airlocks door once the girls give him thumbs up but comes up short when he almost walks into a forcefield. On the other side, he can see the projector is about to fail as wisps of smoke and sparks come out of it. Beyond the projector is a small ledge on the side of a rather large looking hole that was ripped into the ships floor. Nator rifle shot hits the alien ship with expert ease but his glee fades off his face as he watches the plasma roil across the ship's force screens and does no damage other than making it aware of him. One of it's tentacles/pseudopods/armatures/or whatever you want to call it swivels towards Nator's spot with a glow on it's tip. With a no other warning, it unleashes a volley of energy at that location 14. Nator uses his mad fighting skills to use Rover to dodge under the energy volley roll11 and run under the hull of the Atropos to find Trashcan! Brossu Berkesto scrutinises the forcefield and as realisation dawns he begins to shout instructions to the more mechanically minded crew behind him, "This thing is about to fail, if there is anyone on the other side of it I think we'd best get them on board as quickly as possible, I trust the seal you've made but I don't trust the state of that ship, any breach could mean the end for anyone not suited up and we still don't know where our people are. Get the cargo loader, hopefully it has enough oomph to raise things up from the bottom of that hole to the top, if not we are going to need cables, ropes, ladders... dammit, anything we can to create quick access to our airlock." Attempting to use the internal comms he continues, "Cyrus, let us know if anything happens out there, things are not as safe down here as i'd have liked...!" Cyrus nods "There's something over where they last were, it looks like a plasma burst." Mauze looks upwards into the jungle of scaffolding, pipes and sharp edges. "No time...." He unhooks a heavily-modified shotgun from his back and hits various switches and buttons. Mauze sets the weapon to expel a powerful burst of gas to launch him straight to the top of congo deck. He sets his goggles, looks up and pulls the trigger. (Tinkerer 15) Genesis watches the strange alien literally shoot himself up to a higher ledge "Ok, guess we'll follow." Not thinking about how Atty would get up there, she uses her nanobots to boost her to follow Mauze Atty stands still looking up the distance then at everyone gathered still around her before asking “Can any of you climb”? Cyrus watches the monitor still displaying a light show from over the horizon of the hull's edge but surprisingly some of TeeCee's sensors are coming back online. While still limited in range and quality, the scanners pick up Nator's comm ID and indicates he is moving across the outside of Atropa's hull in a hurried manner. While the girls are working on finishing the temporary seals for the docking mechanism, Brossu is standing at the force field. He is calling out over the internal comms “This thing is about to fail, if there is anyone on the other side of it I think we'd best get them on board as quickly as possible, I trust the seal you've made but I don't trust the state of that ship, any breach could mean the end for anyone not suited up and we still don't know where our people are. Get the cargo loader, hopefully it has enough oomph to raise things up from the bottom of that hole to the top, if not we are going to need cables, ropes, ladders... dammit, anything we can to create quick access to our airlock." when suddenly a Nibiran appears, riding what looks to be a gas powered shotgun rocket, landing on the ledge in front of him. Within a few moments Genesis arrives, with her nanoveil swirling around her, and steps foot onto the ledge to peer at Brossu also. Nator gets as close to Trashcan as possible before using his salvager skills to launch himself towards the closest airlock.

Mauze Mauze sees a stocky, suited humanoid on the other side of the forcefield. A quick inspection proves the figure is correct, the shield is going down fast. He frantically begins yanking tools out of the container at his back to open the projector panel. Once it pops, Mauze looks for any way to buy the shield more time. Brossu Berkesto looks relieved to see Genesis with the unexpected Nibiran figure, she looks cool and calm as ever which suggests that this newcomer isn't considered a threat... yet. Seeing the Nibiran, presumably the contact from before, tinkering with the generator Brossu rushes off to help haul the potential life saving components from the various storage areas nearby. Brossu moving about in a rush when without a warning he hears a thud on the hull plating behind him near an airlock. Just then TeeCee speaks up on Brossu's comm “Nator just made contact with the hull and is working the airlock beside you”. Mauze offhandedly noticed the suited Louhos rush off but is mostly focused on the generator. He does notice that there are two human woman working the contact point of the boarding tube and the ruined airlock that the forcefield has sealed off from the vacuum. He can see they almost have it sealed enough to drop the field but it is apparently still vacuum as those two woman are in their space suits. Nator cycles the airlock and enters Trashcan, using the intercom Nate yells out "Hey boss, we need to get out of here ASAP or we're all dooooomed!" Racing to the shop Nate grabs a portable plasma cutter and another batch of rescue balls, cramming the balls into a large duffel Nate slings the cutter from his back and rushes back to the airlock. Instead of cycling the airlock Nate uses the emergency outer door open switch and uses the force of the escaping air to launch himself at the Atropos. After tethering himself to a handhold on the hull Nate uses the cutter to make an opening into the ship. Once inside the Atropos Nate huries to where he knows the rest of the crew are trying to rescue the survivors. Mauze Despite his best efforts it seems the generator is bound to fail. Mauze opens a comm to the crew on deck below, "Everyone.. Seal the main deck doors. Depressurization imminent." Mauze looks up briefly and sees two women working to vacuum seal the airlock. "Humans! Generator failing... How long to complete?" Nator cycles through the airlock and rushes past Brossu who was standing just a few steps away from the airlock while yelling into his comm unit “Hey boss, we need to get out of here ASAP or we're all dooooomed!” as he sprints down the corridor towards the ship area. After grabbing what gear he wants, Nator explosively decompresses the shop room by opening the emergency doors. Blast doors drop down, blocking the shop room off from the rest of the ship, as the air rushes out. The rush of out going air slams Nator into the hull of the Atropa which was only a few meters away from Brossu's ship. Nator scrambles and connects a safety line to the Atropa hull then proceeds to cut into the hull. With a rush of atmosphere explosively ejecting loose material from the hole that Nator created when he pierced the hull. Mauze switches his gaze back and forth from the generator and the two human woman working in the docking tube. One of them holds her hand up to show it is going to take about another 5 minutes when the depressurization alarm starts ringing on his remote sensor comm hanging on his belt. It shows there is a hull breach happening on the same level he is on now but 4 corridors over. Emergency blast doors are dropping as they are suppose to in the living quarters but that effectively disables the life support for the whole area. Now each section contains only what air it had in it before the doors dropped. Brossu gets jolted from side to side as alarms sound “Explosive decompression in shop room, explosive decompression in the shop room. Environmental safety protocols activated” as TeeCee calls out over Brossu's comm “The human Nator just opened the emergency door in the shop and now that section is void of atmosphere along with anything loose laying around. Sensors show he slammed into the hull just below and to the side of us and is proceeding to use a plasma cutter to open a hole into Atropa's hull.” Cyrus feels the jolt through his seat and is surprised by the alarms sounding. Genesis wraps herself in her nanoveil as she observes coolly. Atty is locked in one of the sections with one of the survivors. Brossu Berkesto: stands calmly, an impassive expression on his face as things begin to spiral out of control all around him. Feeling pretty useless is not something the Louhos is used to but his skill set simply does not lend itself well to an emergency situation like this. As the human women continue to work on sealing the docking tube he grunts a customary sigh and begins to pile rescue materials near to the forcefield hoping that they can maintain an atmosphere for long enough for them to become useful and not another hazard. By the looks of the drop on the other side at least his low centre of gravity and brute strength might finally become useful in hauling survivors up to the docking area. Thanking TC for the updates he contacts Oda and Cyrus via internal comms "Oda, be ready to launch as soon as TC confirms that we are done here. Cyrus keep your eye on that 'ship', it's all gone a bit quiet over there and I don't like that one bit. Also... has anyone heard from Rev at all...?" Nator climbs into the closest emergency access tunnel and using it's system of inner airlocks makes his way over to where the survivors are. Exiting the tunnel in the section where Genesis is working on the airlock tube, Nate starts passing out the rescue balls, "Two people per ball, get in let's go MOVE IT, MOVE IT MOVE IT!!!!!" Mauze Mauze steps to the nearest comm and opens a ship-wide channel. "If you hear this, get to congo deck. Life support is severed. Air will soon deplete... With quickness!" If the shield falls before the lock... We will perish, Mauze thinks to himself. Even if they are blown into the Rift, a swift end will be better than slowly running out of air. He returns to the barrier and frantically tries to reroute power from the now useless life support system. Chandler S. Q, though very much wobbling under pressure (that is, more than his usual wobbly self), takes a quick electromagnetic peek at is precious glass orb before mustering up the courage and courtesy to let everyone else go to the rescue balls first, much to the chagrin of his survival instincts. Before he could go with his fellow survivors, he knew he had to wait on Mauze. He couldn't in all good conscious leave someone he as called friend behind. As alarms are ringing, Nator is rushing some people into various life pod rescue balls, Mauze is encouraging everyone to gather on the congo deck, which is where Nator is at, over the Intercom, Q oozes his way through some tight fitting ventilation ducts to arrive at the gathering location only to see a stranger herding his friends into collapsible lifepods called “rescue balls”. Brossu is toting what loose rigging he could snatch up from an unblocked storage room, due to most of his needed gear has been sealed behind the blast doors in the shop due to the sudden decompression that the room suffered from, to the docking tube that the two girls just finished patching prior to the field dropping. Genesis's clothing whips around her, as the air is sucked into the docking tube, briefly but she is able to stand firm thanks to her nanoveil anchoring her in place on the deck. Mauze though is caught off guard and staggers in the direction of the vacuum pull till the rush of air stops. The generator that he was working on gave a puff of smoke and sparks before it turned into a pile of partially melted metal and electronics. The two girls move out of Brossu's way as he carries the cabling through the docking tube and drops them on the ruined deck near Mauze as he peers down three levels to spy Nator rushing people about and loading them into the rescue balls. Retracting the spacesuit helmet, Brossu is assaulted by the smell of people and animals living in a confined and limited lifesupported area for a few years, his experienced ears tell him that the ship is slowly coming apart due to the various events that have recently happened which ranged from the alien vessel attacking the rover on the hull to Nator cutting holes into it. Q spots high up above his friend Mauze standing next to unknown blob of distorted energy that seems to swirl and shift shapes and a Louhos. Could this be the rescue that Mauze has told everyone repeatedly over the years since the explosion that wrecked the ship? Q Q looks up at the collapsed floors leaded up to his trusted friend Mauze and knew that rescue from this sinking ship was so close yet so far. Quickly looking around his surroundings, Qu'ari sweat dripping from his faceless head, he found a narrow collapsed pillar wedged vertically between the first and second floor, which could allow him a precarious ascension, but only to the second floor. Panic started to sink in which prompted Q to look to his familiar crystal ball for all the answers. Upon close inspection, he could detect energy reflecting of the ball to reveal a strange coiled object slightly sticking out of the third floor near Mauze, which he presumed were large cables of some sort. Upon this realization, Q waved six elastic tendrils up in the air and shouted. "Mauze! Down here!" He cried. "I'm going to climb up this pillar to the second floor! Right next to you is a cable! Lower it when I get to the second floor!" He exclaimed. Brossu Berkesto: begins securing the longest cables to secure areas and drops them over the end of the hole shouting for Nator to secure the other ends to the rescue balls, telling him to give a tug on each cable once secure Brossu instructs the two humans with him to continue securing the makeshift 'life-lines' and readies himself to begin hauling survivors up to the dock. As Chloe passes him he asks her if the hover loader would have enough lift to cover three floors of height? Nator grabs each of the cables as they fall around him and ties them securely to the handles of each of the loaded rescue balls. Once all the balls are secured Nate makes sure the remaining balls are secured to his waist before climbing up to help Brossu hoist the survivors to the airlock level. Mauze After the blast, Mauze stood and shook off the effects of the temporary vacuum. "Mauze! Down here!" It was Q. He dropped everything and immediately ran to the edge of the ravaged deck and looked down to ensure his safety. "Lower the cable when I get to the second floor," he shouted. "Yes, friend Q. I will." Mauze unhooked the metallic pack from his back. He hit a few switches underneath and it clanked and clunked, unfolding into a small winch and crank. Mauze hooked the cable into the bench and began to lower it down to Q's location. Brossu Berkesto watches the new Nibiran carefully as he works, but seeing no danger from the surprising and ingenious humanoid he continues to haul the rescue balls up to the edge of the hole. With a final heave he propels each one in turn back into the dock area where Lachesis and Chloey can assist with getting the survivors aboard TrashCan "TC, environment seems stable for now, get those blast doors open and these folk aboard please..." As Brossu and Nator strain to pull up the various rescue balls, Mauze calmly unfolds his portable powerwinch to lower a small platform seat down to his Qu'arian friend. Minutes pass by as everyone works on the recue and has everyone that was down below now up on their level and herding into the Trashcan but Cloey is looking around with a panic look on her face “Where's Atty? She wasn't with the others.” Mauze was counting heads and noticed that there was some of his people missing also. Moving over to the intercom panel and hooking in his battered worktable to peer at the cracked screen, he accesses the remaining security cams and sees a few rooms. The first camera is in a storage room about 4 levels down and 18 corridors away that has the last 4 survivors which one of them is Jennifer, his buddy. They all have oxygen breathers on but no spacesuits. The sensor log shows there is nothing but vacuum outside the room they are in. The second camera is located about halfway through the ship and it shows Atty moving at a rapid pace with what appears to be a pulse rifle in hand and a Jolly's heirloom sword from his room. Mauze knows the corridor she is traveling in leads to the power core room. The third camera shows another corridor that is full of debris but what catches Mauze's eye and anyone else watching is a slight shimmer that moved through the corridor and shifted some of the debris as it moved past it. Mauze knows that corridor is on the other side of the power core room and it looks like whatever the shimmer is, it is heading towards the power core. The fourth remaining camera reveals the powercore room. The static filled feed shows Atty entering the room only to find Rev standing in the center of the room with his weapons drawn. Rev points towards the doorway that is where the corridor with the shimmering movement in it is at with his weapons and waits. Atty points the pulse rifle she has up at the doorway also. Mauze knows that there is nothing to be done for it would take over 30 minutes of working through the various corridors and maintance shafts which most of them are exposed to the vacuum of space. Everyone that is watching also knows that if that core is hit in a firefight it would explode and probably destroy most of the section they are in. Brossu Berkesto finishes getting all of the non-operational survivors onto trashcan, giving them directions to the mess hall where they are instructed to wait until further notice. Turning to the Nibiran known as Mauze he asks calmly but with a firm tone to indicate that time is of the essence here. "Your survivors, can we reach them quickly?" Nodding towards Nator to indicate that he should give his answer to the salvager he turns to Genesis, "Could your veil thing create a seal around the door so that if we opened it the vacuum would be kept out? And if so, could you penetrate the veil without breaking that seal to deliver the suits needed to get those people out?" Again, nodding to Chloey to indicate that she should work with her, Nator and Mauze on that problem he walks past the stricken Chloey, drops a reassuring hand on her shoulder before turning to Lachesis and asking her for an opinion on how much damage the core could take before a rupture would lead to an explosion. After hearing the expected bad news he turns to look despondently at the monitor and appeals to TC, to his comms unit... to anyone "Can we contact them, they need to get back here now..." With a heavier than usual sigh Brossu turns from the screen knowing that watching won't save them. Nator turns to Mauze, "You, find us the quickest way to where your people are, let's go do this." Turning to Genesis Nate asks, "Well? Can you do what the boss asked about?" Genesis faces Brossu with an emotionless look "I can, but it will take considerable effort on my part to maintain not only the veil against the vacuum, but also to permeate it enough to get the suits out.I can do it, but I can't guarantee I'll be much use after that without rest. Brossu Berkesto nods, "if it gets us to those people with rescue balls or suits then we've got to try, I'll come and if you won't mind I'll happily carry you back myself... once we are off this deathtrap you can have all the rest you need." Nator looks at Brossu and Genesis, "Well, let's get going then!" Looking to Mauze Nate tells him, "Lead on pal." Q Q, overhearing the others, decided to speak up. "Let me come too!" he said, not wanting to feel powerless in this situation. "I know I can't do much, but I can't just let them die like this! We have to save them!" And with that, Q decided to follow Mauze and the others. Mauze felt a wave of panic as the party all looked to him. "Erm... Yes. Follow..." He called the winch back up, "Get on... and hold something." With that he lowered them back down to the main deck at a speed just shy of a free fall. After it jerked to a harsh stop, he left his where it was and Mauze ... he left the rig where it was and began to barrel through the corridors towards the area in vacuum, leading the others with him. "Make haste!" Nator stays on Mauze's heels as they all rush down the corridor. Brossu Berkesto instructs TC to seal the ship and ready the airlock for their return, he checks all the seals on his suit to make sure all is right before heading into the vacuum and follows the quirky Nibiran and his Qu'ari companion. With a quick glance to make sure that both Nator and Genesis are suitably prepared he checks that there are enough rescue balls for the remaining survivors and a spare for Genesis should she need one after the rescue. Shaking his head again at the turn this 'salvage' mission has taken he can't help but have a flicker of concern for the humans near the core... ironic since just a few days ago he wouldn't have cared either way about a human or two being potentially vaporised... As everyone rushes through the ship's corridor to reach the last survivors, faint vibrations are felt through the decking. Alarms are shrieking and when Mauze pauses to look at a control panel, he is not happy. Over three quarters of the living space that A and him have spent years maintaining is now exposed to the vacuum of space. Lighting in the corridors flicker and pulse. The panel shows the power core is starting to become unstable. Another 10 minutes of travel with some of it having the artificial gravity fluctuate sometimes lighter and sometimes heavier, the group reaches the room with the survivors. ((rescuing the survivors: TN 15, If you use teamwork, chose your cliché and any 6's rolled for your cliché adds 1 to main roll)) Nator looks to Genesis, "This is your show, let me know what you need me to do." Nator: Salvager, 4 dice 15 Q Q attempts to manifest his psychic powers to create a telepathic link between himself, Mauze, and the Crew of the Trashcan to better coordinate actions Q: Q Mind Blowing Psychic 4 Dice /roll [4d6] Mind Blowing Psychic 4 Dice /roll 10 Brossu Berkesto begins relaying instructions to the survivors as loud as he can through the door in an attempt to assist with the rescue effort (Trader Cliche, Negotiation Specialization 15). Making sure to leave space for Genesis he stands nearby ready to catch her should the effort of the rescue prove too much. He feels a tingle at the back of his mind and reflexively looks at the amorphous Qu'ari with a raised eye ridge... Mauze rounds one final corridor and sees the closed metal door to the survivors quarters. He pulls a spare propulsion drive core from his vest. They're usually used in his modified shotgun but has something else in mind. "Jenny! Those inside! MooMauze twists a few components on the puck-shaped device and applies some simple puddy to make it stick. Finally he slaps the device hard. It begins to hiss as he throws it into the door. Mauze: says "Moo to you as well friends... It's Nibiryan for how do you say... Be careful." Lowers his goggles and waits. Brossu Berkesto backs up quickly upon seeing the hissing core and turns his back to the device while shielding the party with his body hoping that his shell has developed enough to prevent the coming shrapnel from literally tearing him a new one. Nodding to Genesis he tells her to be ready to seal the breach with her veil once it is open and apologises in advance should he need to lay hands on her to keep her steady or on her feet. Genesis reaches the point between them and the survivors. "Ok, give me some space." Once everyone steps back some, she summons her nanobots (12Nano-Shaman). As sweat forms on her brows, her veil forms between them and the survivors, she winces as if in pain. "Ok, once we're ready I can open a space. The faster we do this, the better." As everyone is waiting in the silence of vacuum, they all watch Genesis slowly coalesce a shimmering veil of smoke while floating before the door when the gravity goes out and emergency lighting kicks on to dimly illuminate the corridor is evenly spaced distances as the door is blown open. With a opening arms gesture, Genesis flings the smoke at the now breached door as the rush of air hits Nator without warning to make him stagger back a step or two from the force of it. Brossu grunts with the shock of getting hit by debris but his suit and shell held up to the punishment, barely. He realizes that Genesis is stripped of her veil and is exposed to the ravages of the vacuum of space. Nator watched the door be breached violently and through the breached door, saw 4 humans be flung backwards to the far wall only to be picked up and sucked forward with the rush of escaping air before Genesis's veil covers the hole. The only reason he was not sent tumbling down the corridor, Nator realizes, is that his mag boots were still turned on from earlier and he forgot to disengage them with all his running around. Mauze was gleeful with his bomb for it did the job without killing anyone and he knew his friend Q tried his mental tricks to help but they didn't take, probably due to them being unknown humans. Q couldn't meld the fields from all these unknown humans with the pace that was required. It all happened to fast but with practice he knows he can do it. With a start, he feels a human starting to suffocate and is in pain from being exposed to the vacuum of space. Spinning on his pseudopods, he looks at what was just a lump of energy but now is a young human female that was shielded by the Louhos called Brossu from the explosion. Without enough time to properly gather and form a shield for the door before the explosion, Genesis flung her nanoveil at the breach but it took more than she was ready to give which stripped her of her protection from space. She hangs there in the vacuum of space in front of Brossu as the ravages of vacuum damage her body but knows that 4 people's lives hang on her keeping the veil in place. Nator grabs Genesis, shoves her into an empty rescue ball, sealing and inflating the ball before moving through her nanoveil to help rescue the survivors. Brossu Berkesto grabs hold of a nearby pipe as the gravity gives out and grabs hold of Genesis with the other hand. Realising that she has used her full veil to seal the door way he shouts above the rushing atmosphere that she needs to use what strength she has left to allow herself to pass through the veil seal. Seeing Nator reaching out with a prepared rescue ball he gently propels Genesis in his direction while shouting for Nator to push her towards the door as soon as he can. Knowing that the human can likely only survive a true vacuum for mere seconds before the vacuum is complete and she loses consciousness, after which death is the likely outcome. Cursing inwardly at the continued bad luck he again surprises himself for caring about the welfare of a human. Genesis couldn't have predicted the sheer amount of force it took to hold the veil steady. As the pressure forced her outward, she could feel the ravages of space. However, the safety of the people were top priority, she understood that much now. It took little time before she could feel herself slipping. Before she lost consciousness, she could feel herself being pulled forward and feeling the warmth of protection. She focused every ounce of power she had left to keep the veil alive. Cyrus could only watch in horror as the one person he cared for most nearly lost her life. He would have words with Brossu later, that much was clear. Mauze 's glee turns to awe of the strange human's powers, to horror at the aftermath of his bomb. After recuperating from the shock, he scans the area to find Q safe. Relieved, he scrambles along the ground for a stray rescue pod and begins to cut and strip the strong fabric from it. "Retrieve the survivors and return here! I will seal the breach!" He shouts, hoping he can be heard above the cacophony. He begins using the salvaged fabric and a simple bonding agent to start sealing the area around the peculiar smoke. Q Q attempts to enter the survivor area and helps Nator guide people to safety. With Genesis safely tucked into a rescue ball, her nano implants kick in to replicate more of the nano-veil in an attempt to heal the damage from her unintended space walk. With her consciousness hanging by a thread, Genesis focuses on the sensation she feels from the nano-veil. Cyrus watched all of the events from the various camera feeds from the suits everyone but Genesis was wearing and the ship feed. Without warning, the camera feed from the Attropa's power core room goes dark as the feed seems to have been cut off and there is no response in TC's attempt to get the feed back. Brossu, who is showing more concern then he normally does, was yelling into his suit mic as the escaping air buffeted him some until the nano-veil seals the sudden and unexpected door breach. TC's voice comes over the comms on the suits “Camera feed from the Power Core is down and not responding to any attempt to restart”. Nator is holding the ball containing Genesis but is slowly moving it towards her veil that is still remaining. It remains a smokey grey in color as it swirls but appears to be solid as Nator and Q both try to enter through it. To Q's senses, this wall of electromagnetic swirl is fascinating. He can sense each little piece swirling about in a directed manner as they hold onto each other in an attempt to keep the pressure on one side from passing through. Mauze finds one of the rescue balls laying off to one side that has a hole punched through it from debris of the door breach and begins to salavage parts of it in an attempt to overlay the veil in case it fails. Mauze states over his patched together suit comm “Retrieve” static filled “return here!” static filled “I” static filled “breach!" Nator glares daggers through his suit face plate at the Nibiryan who blew the wall with no warning as he attempts to move through the nanoveil seal. Brossu Berkesto breathes a sigh of relief to see the female human safely encapsulated in the rescue ball, the light rise and fall of her chest coupled with the continued nano-veil seal on the door suggesting that she has maintained consciousness and more importantly life. Still coming to terms with his new feelings for his races historical oppressors, or at least a small handful of them anyway, Brossu drops a heavy hand on Nator's shoulder as he moves towards the door... "Get those survivors into rescue balls ASAP, we need to get out of here now. I feel I can trust you human, don't let me down. As soon as that veil drops I'm getting Genesis back to TC, I expect you and the others to be right behind me." Nator glances back over his shoulder at Brossu and replies, "Don't worry boss, I'll be right in front of you!" as he continues through the veil. Genesis clings on to the last bit of consciousness she has. Safely inside the bubble, she controls her breathing, as she read about in a medical journal she picked up at the School. Hoping the others would get everyone to safety soon, less she break the veil and cause trouble for the survivors. As the survivors, who are on the other side of the veil, watch the salvage crew slowly force their way through the barrier that is keeping them alive they are nervous. They are watching the smokey semi-transparent barrier bend and distort inward as two people push against it. As Genesis clings to consciousness, she feels pressure of something pushing slowly against the veil only to dimly realize that it is some crew members trying to enter the pressurized room that the nano-veil is sealing and she is not letting them in so they are forcing themselves through which is a painful sensation. Brossu watches Nator and Q push hard against the veil. He realizes that for something that looks vaporous, it was fairly solid. Nator and Q push hard against the smokey semi-transparent barrier and it slowly bends in against their pressure. Q watches the almost frantic swirling of the electromagnetic barrier as he and the human called “Nator” press against barrier and can tell that it is actively resisting their efforts. Nator is reminded of the one time he encountered a weakened force field, where he pushed determinedly against it till it failed and collapsed, as he pushes determinedly against the nano-veil in his effort to get to the other side. Olaf T. remembers the time he pressed a force field until it collapsed from an overload, and takes a step back from the nanoveil. Nate presses his face shield against the window of the rescue ball and looks at the almost unconscious Genesis, "I don't know if you understand me right now, but if you do, can you let us through the veil to rescue the folks on the other side?" Brossu Berkesto watches silently from the side as Nator tries to pass through the veil with Genesis, seeing the resistance and flickers of pain etched upon the female humans face he grits his teeth and mutters to himself "Just get the damn rescue balls through so she can drop the veil..." Feeling helpless he does another check of his suit's seals and scans the escape route to ensure the blast hasn't blocked anything. Genesis musters all her strength to open the veil slightly to let them through. It hurts, but if they do it quickly enough, she should be able to close it, or better yet, drop the veil, and be able to pull herself together. Once Genesis gathers her wits and strength, she allows everyone into the room and minutes later the survivors are placed in the rescue balls with no trouble. The lack of artifical gravity works in the favor of the group in the effort to get the survivors back to the ship. On the trip back to the ship, Mauze's pad starts to vibrate and flash it's display in an eye catching brightness until he turns off the alarm. It is his app for monitoring the power core showing the core is going critical. Brossu's comm piece sounds off a chirp in his ear with TeeCee speaking softly moments later “Boss, that wrecks core is going critical. Get off that hunk of junk and in my belly now. You have just enough time to get here if you don't !$!@$! around.” Cyrus was watching the various feeds from the corridors and spotted a running weapon battle with Atty and Rev against some flickering mass of what appears to be be a blob of tentacles with what appears to be a core of rotating teeth. Nator and Q have their hands and pseudopods full of handling the rescued survivors. Brossu Berkesto grabs the ball containing the exhausted Genesis tightly by the handle and apologises to her (despite the fact she probably can't hear him) for the coming bumpy ride. Taking another of the balls in his other powerful hand he shouts to the group that they need to get back to TC immediately, "Nibiran, lead the way. Do not get us lost, stuck or sidetracked or we will all die here and I for one would never forgive you that." With that he begins to run back towards the ship hoping that the strange Nibiran known as Mauze will overtake him and lead the way soon... Nator grabs the rescue ball Q is carrying and with two in each hand launches himself after Brossu after deactivating his magnetic boots to take advantage of the lack of gravity. Mauze shouts "Haste, haste, haste!" As the last of the crew and survivors doubles back through the hole he blasted open, Mauze completes the makeshift seal, turns and runs. "... And i for one would never forgive you that." The tough-looking human says. "Mmmm.. Errr yes. Quickly we'll go.." Mauze's eyes open wide with panic as he sprints as fast as he can towards the winch and bench mechanism. "Here! Take hold of something, everyone." He climbs further up the winch and holds a piece of cable to save room on the bench. Mauze flips open a clasp on his belt and hovers a claw over the winch control switch, ready to hit go as soon as all are on board. Genesis opens her eyes slightly before they begin moving. She nods her head slightly in acceptance, despite the fact he most likely didn't see her. She closes her eyes again and succumbs to the tiredness. Her veil, having been dissembled, disperses and her nanobots reform towards her before they depart. Her last thought was the fact she was thankful she held on long enough for everyone to get through safely. Up through, down around, over and under everyone races through the wreck in an attempt to reach the safety of Trashcan when the corridor just outside the docking tube area shudders and ripples as a power surge flows through the wreckage. Q watches a massive wave of electromagnetic energy flow to him and pass. Genesis feels the wave of power wash over her as her nano-veil filters in and through the protective shell of the safety ball she is in. Brossu, for a moment, feels like reality just got turned upside down. Mauze looks at his tablet, with fear showing in the wideness of his eyes and the flattening of his rat like ears seen inside his helmet, as the app is blinking red. Oda is screaming over the comms in commonwealth “Get your scraggly asses back on the ship. The core is about to blow and it is throwing out waves of energy. TeeCee is getting scrambled while sitting here waiting for you”. Mauze hits the switch just as the last of the party get on the winch. The bench screams upwards quickly accelerating to it's its maximum velocity. Mauze nervously checks the ship status on his tablet as they continue the upward climb. He looks down at them all, battered, dirtied and exhausted thanks to him. "Erm... New friends- no... Or uhm.. Rescuers! Yes.. Thank you... I would thank you before we die in large explosion maybe. Because of you, we will stay alive... maybe.. If incoming power surge does not vaporize us first, of course." Brossu Berkesto orders everybody into the airlock ready to board TrashCan. Head throbbing from the intensity of the situation he activates his comms to ask TC is there is any word on Rev or Atty, almost resigning himself in his heart of hearts to the fact that they might have leave without his new security officer and primary enforcer... "At least one of these blasted spacehobos better be a billionaire in disguise" he mutters to himself as he lingers at the Atropa end of the dock determined to be the last one back on board in a vain attempt to wait for his missing crew members. Nator places the rescue balls he is carrying down in the airlock and seeing Brossu at the other end of the airlock tube dashes back out to where he is waiting. Nate grabs Brossu and in a quiet voice starts talkin to him, "Come on boss, we need to get outta here before that core blows and destroys all of us and Trashcan. Rev and Atty knew the risks, if they aren't back now, they won't be coming back." Cyrus's monitor starts showing the bulging of the wrecks skin in the far distance as Mauze's alarms starts flashing. The scanners on Trashcan sound a shrill alarm as Nator and Brossu both see debris floating about start to shift. All the rescue pods are sitting in the large airlock along with Q standing next to Mauze and the podded Genesis. Mauze's alarm showing the core in the process of going critical which will vaporize this half of the wreck and disperse the rest of the wreckage into deeper space. Q is almost hypontised by the raw wall of EM growing towards him. Genesis can feel the raw power escaping containment in the distance. Oda and Cyrus watch as TeeCee's alarms are screaming and she is powering up the engines Nator and Brossu are standing at the end of the docking tube as the shockwave pulse is moving the debris in their direction. Both of them know that an explosion is imminent. Brossu Berkesto knows that the human is right and he isn't about to sacrifice everyone else in the vain hope that a couple of humans are coming back. Lifting Nator off his feet before the salvager can even react he charges for TrashCan and slams his meaty fist down on the button to shut the air lock even as he is screaming into his comms for TC to bypass Oda's controls and launch immediately, top speed, directly away from this place. Knowing that the ships intelligence can make all of that happen faster than his buddy on the bridge. Turning to the survivors and setting Nator down on the deck he suggests that they all "Get to the mess hall, it's deep within the ship and will buy them all some time if there are any hull breaches from the incoming debris." Turning to lead the way he uses his comms to contact Cyrus privately ~Genesis ok, meet at the mess hall to accompany her back to her quarters to rest, Oda can 'man' the weapons~ Nator gets to his feet and looking at Brossu mutters, "Thanks boss." After helping to escort the survvors to teh mess hall Nate swaps out the tanks and powerpack for his suit before heading towards the work shop to monitor the systems for any breaches in the hull. Cyrus gets the message and, after a quick glance back at the screen and the mess unfolding, runs to meet them at the mess hall. Mauze helps the survivors out of their rescue balls once the dock is sealed. As the last stands and follows the crew to the mess hall, he pauses to stare out a small viewing window as the Atropos. The hell that had been home for far too many cycles slowly pulls away into the blackness of space. "I hope she will be truly swallowed... Only bad memory now." Mauze turns and followed the rest. As everyone is settled into place, Cyrus taking Genesis back to their room, the Survivors being looked after by Nator, Mauze, and Q, Brossu flopping down into his captains chair, Oda pouring the power to the engines, TeeCee is bringing up the rear camera/scanners to be watched on various displays. The wreck of the Atropas writhes and heaves as her skin starts to distort and bulge from something cataclysmic happening inside her. In almost slow motion like display of fiery hunger, the wreck is consumed from the inside by it's power core going critical. TeeCee seems to have been affected by what has happened and is happening as she is trying to speak through her speakers “10 seconds shockwave in brace for”. Oda is cussing up a storm in his native tongue as his fingers dance across the controls “Nahit foobha krrrshi taa mau” then switches to commonwealth “Hyper-engines primed, ready to engage in 10 seconds” then frowns “Where's the girls? They aren't answering the intercom in engine room.” Brossu Berkesto turns the air blue, "If they went aboard against my orders they've met the same end as their sister and Rev. THIS is why I don't deal with humans, far too much emotion involved!" Switching to private comms he sends a message to Nator who is down in the ships guts already asking him to look around for Lachesis and Chloey. With the usual sigh and a wistful look at the monitors showing rapidly vaporised salvage opportunities he leaves the bridge in the capable hands of Oda and the capable microchips of TC muttering simply "Get us to our delivery point on time please...". A short while later he arrives in the mess hall to address the milling survivors dead-pan, still reeling from the likely loss of at least two crew members with nothing to show for it but a bunch of space hobos, "This is a trade ship, not a pleasure cruiser, there are a number of bunks available but you might have to double up in some cases, TC the ships AI, will guide you while I make some arrangements for getting you people some food... I hope you like freeze-dried rations 'cause I ain't no chef." At that he dismisses them all with a wave of his hand and begins to trudge towards the galley. Nator acknowledges Brossu's message with a curt "Yes boss." and starts looking around for the girls while rummaging through cabinets looking for parts to start fabricating a new Rover. Genesis having been unconscious for the time being, wakes up in the mess hall upon hearing voices. She stirs and gets up, eyeing the room and the people in it. It takes her a minute to catch up on all that's happened, but she listens to Brossu. Unsure of what happened while she was out, she catches up to Brossu and walks with him. Cyrus begins rethinking this whole career thing. Maybe it would be better off back at the School. At least there, there are no large robots attacking, ships blowing up, and Genesis nearly dying trying to save survivors. He knows that Genesis won't want to leave after this. And he couldn't blame her. Brossu Berkesto is momentarily taken aback when Genesis joins him on his walk to the galley. With one eye on the ever wary Cyrus he mutters an apology to the human female, "S'ry for putting you through that but without your help those people would be lost in that explosion just like..." He pauses before confronting the horrible truth of the likely loss of at least Rev and Atty. Quickly tapping at his comms he requests that TC do a life sign scan of the vacated area before the ship jumps into hyper space. Still hoping that Nator can find the other sisters he begins rifling through cabinets, pulling out freeze dried packets of various nutritious but bland food and starts slamming them down on the side, his frustration finally boiling over. Turning to Genesis again he softens his face as best a Louhos can and gives her a nod of respect "You did good back there, get some rest..." turning back to the 'food' on the side he thumps his fist down and mutters loudly "Where's a damn chef when you want one...??" Mauze walks into the mess hall last. After the big Louhos finishes speaking and leaves, an uneasy silence falls upon the room. The faces of the survivors are that of shock, fear and confusion. Many look for their friends and offer what comfort they can to one another. Mauze notices their rescuers jump straight back to action. Mauze looks for Q but can't spot him, so he sends a message telepathically. Mauze approaches a human holding exhaust ports in each hand. "In your right... AEX-89173B, this is best weight to waste eliminating ratio, at cost of reliability. In your left... GIB-Hyper Edition, high weight, high reliability but makes too much heat... Erm.. But if you switch the polarity here and sideline the... [Mauze continues into a lengthy techno-babble about various ways to tweak the two parts]. And so I think... Maybe both is okay... What are you fabricate? Maybe... I can do tweaking." After a moment without a reply Mauze added, "I... am only useful in this. It was how to survive in Atropos." Genesis merely looks at Brossu with a stone face. Some would call her an ice queen, but inside she is thankful she managed to save those people "I only did what was required of me. They got here safely. I am..sorry for the loss we did have however." With that, she turned and headed for her room for some much needed R and R Oda Xasse sits on the bridge fidgeting with the useless controls since TC is still in primary control. Once the hyper drive is fully charged and ready he sends a quick message to Brossu confirming that they can vacate the area on his order, almost instantly he receives a reply telling him to wait until the Captain has heard back from Nator or TC regarding the missing sisters. With a sad shake of his head, knowing that his boss will be beating himself up over the loss of crew, even humans; the Nibiran bodyguard turned pilot turns to regard the monitors showing the survivors, especially the quirky, even by his peoples standards, one known as Mauze. As people move about in the ship Trashcan, it continues to accelerate away from the catastrophic explosion that was once the Atropas. Nator searched for the missing crew only not to find them but has discovered that one of the escape pods, two retrieved fighter engines, one micro-fusion reactor, a jump capacitor ring, and some other salvaged parts are missing from the cargo holds. Cyrus and Genesis both retreat to their room but notices that the girls room across the hallway from them has been stripped of any personal effects that they had placed in public view. Mauze wanders the corridors of Trashcan after making sure the survivors are ok, numb but ok. Running into Nator, who is searching the ship, and comments on the parts that Nator was carrying, he decides to hangout with this rather burly human. Standing in the Galley with his head tilted down and an unreadable expression, by human standards, Brossu slowly crushes a sealed food pack in his hand without thought. Just when he mutters "Where's a damn chef when you want one...??" A small gelatinous being come gliding up to stand next to Brossu. With a pseudopod he/she/it, Brossu couldn't tell, takes the crushed pack from his hand then proceeds to start making a meal from whatever it found in the galley. Brossu had to take a few steps back as pseudopods began to whip about and grab ingredients and cooking instruments then with knives blurring, water bubbling, the sounds of a low pitched humming coming from the being, Brossu starts to smell something he only smelled on spacestations. Food. Not only food but actually mouthwatering food. Oda starts to fidget with what he thought was useless controls discovered that those control were still active. It seems TeeCee has taken damage from the EMP and is not completely recovered. After sending the quick message to Brossu, he returns attention to the screens to watch the survivors. Not seeing one of his people sent Oda flipping through the cameras on the ship, only to spot the Nibiran with Nator. On one of the long range scanners, that was located where Cyrus was positioned at, flickered a contact briefly before it was washed out from the outpouring energy of the explosion. TeeCee popped up a notification to Oda that hyper-engines were primed and ready, destination locked in and awaiting command to commence hyper-jump. Brossu Berkesto stares at the Qu'ari for shocked moment. Mutters "You're hired..." and goes to slap the being on the back in his usual friendly manner, realising he doesn't know which but is the back, or the front for that matter, he gives up and heads out of the galley. Informing the milling survivors via the comms that once they are settled in they should report back to the mess hall for food he heads back to the bridge. Along the way he receives a message from Oda about potential damage to TC, the missing girls, a small reading on one of the scanners and the ships readiness to 'jump'. Sighing at the never ending list of things to do he sends out a barrage of messages ~TC: run self diagnostics and send report to Nator... oh and give full galley access to our new Qu'ari chef!~ | ~Nator: Check diagnostics and do what you do best, Mauze or whatever his name is seems pretty handy, use him if you trust his skills~ | ~Oda: Hold fire on the jump and recalibrate the scanners, if we are clear of the blast zone and shrapnel stop us here and scan the area we just vacated, I aren't going anywhere until I know for sure there is no-one left out there who wants to come with us!~ Reaching the bridge Brossu slumps down into his chair again and begins checking is PDA for any long range signals that might carry the latest void jammer racing results... Nator makes a list of the missing parts and equipment, not finding the girls Nate uses the intercom to request Brossu meet him in the repair shop. Turning to Mauze, Nate looks him up and down, "I don't know who you are, and I don't really care, what I do care about is that you endangered the lives of EVERYONE who was trying to rescue 'your people,' not to mention the lives of the people we were saving. The next time you have a brilliant idea like that you need to talk it over with someone first!" Turning from the Nibrian Nate proceeds to make sure all tools and parts are in their place and secured. Nator: Once the shop is secured Nate sits at the computer and starts running diagnostic checks on the ship to look for possible problems. Not noticing any problems that could turn critical Nate removes his space suit for the first time in days and heads for the emergency shower in the shop. Brossu Berkesto , upon receiving Nator's message, puts down his PDA and turns to Oda "Shoulda just hired a droid crew... oh well, what is done is done. If the long range scans come back clear of life signs make the jump, I want solid ground beneath my feet and credits in my account as soon as possible please buddy. If you need me I'll be in the repair shop..." With a groan due to his aching muscles he stands up and plods heavily to the maintenance deck. Oda Xasse watches the Captain head off and shakes his head sadly and speaks to himself, TC or just the universe in general "Droids be reliable but not fun and there goes a Louhos who needs some fun in his life, why fun gotta turn sour so quick is beyond me though..." Mauze says "I... Erm... I..." and scurries quickly away from the human. He rejoins the rest of the survivors and sits... and immediately stands back up. After wrenching his hands together while pacing for several minutes he sits once more. Mauze removes several small tools from his pockets along with Stella from her holster and begins to disassemble and clean the relic carefully and methodically. Genesis notices the stripped room. She stands at the entrance and looks in the room while Cyrus goes in and plops down on his bed. She didn't know the girls very well, but she decided that they needed to be honored for their help. She's bring that up to Brossu when she could. For now, she went to bed for some rest. As everyone is moving about doing there own thing, the ship slows down but still moves in a defensive pattern to dodge the now moving debris from the explosion. On the monitor for the long range scanners on the bridge, a faint blip shows up. Reviewing the scan, it indicates that it is the lifepod from TrashCan but it's power readings are all wrong. The scanner shows it has now a defensive shielding and a jumpdrive which is powered and activating. Seconds later, it is gone as the scanners show it went hyperspace. TeeCee chimes over the intercom as everyone settles in for a meal “ETA to Colony World Korlandar will be 3 days after jumping to hyperspace”. Nate Gives the list of missing gear to Brossu before collapsing into his bunk for the first time in three days. Brossu Berkesto looks down the list and nods to himself, it looks as though the ingenious sisters made a mini-ship and did a runner, based on their last known location he can only hope that somehow Rev and Atty had survived although he knows that to be a foolish bit of sentimentality which he finds mildly disconcerting given his feelings towards humans generally. However, if they did survive and the sisters did recover them then the best of luck to them... he just wishes they'd have left some credits behind because those parts aren't going to replace themselves! Sending the list to Oda he orders him to add the necessary parts onto the restock inventory before heading off to spend the next three days relaxing and speaking with survivors to see what he can learn of them, their situation, whether any profit can be made from this rescue or just to see if any humans present will further intrigue him, after all maybe his hereditary memories of humans aren't as universally encompassing as he had always been told they were! Oda Xasse tracks down Brossu later that fateful day and offers him some measure of good news. Having looked over the list of missing parts from the sisters desertion he has estimated that most, if not all, of the parts can be replaced into stock from the salvage they managed to acquire following the pirate/war-bot attack. The downside is the loss of profit from selling those parts on when they hit the markets on arrival in Korlandar, that is certainly news the Nibiran isn't looking forward to telling his friend... Mauze spends the journey listlessly wandering the new ship. He keeps quiet and to himself, taking note of the mechanics of the ship he recognizes and wishing he could break down and learn about the parts he doesn't. It was nice to not be relied on anymore, but Mauze began to miss the comfort of routine on the Atropos. He was safe for now and didn't need to worry about keeping anyone alive, let alone a whole space station. Then why, Mauze wondered, was it so hard to keep still? Nate takes a couple of days to recover before starting to fabricate a duplicate of "Rover" Genesis rests to recover the amount of stress put on her to save the people on the ship. As she recuperates, she reads a few more books, most notably about the different races in deep space, to better acquaint herself with her boss and their new teammate. She resumes her cold exterior, but, if one paid close attention, they would notice a different tone in her voice when she spoke to the others. Brossu Berkesto towards the end of the hyperspace journey Brossu tracks down Genesis, usually to be found under the ever watchful eye of her male travelling companion. Approaching cautiously he attempts a disarming smile, which on the face of a Louhos probably looks more like a grimace or snarl to a human! "I wanted to thank you again, and apologise. You've saved this ship and the people back there in just the short time I've known you. While I can't help but judge your race harshly I hope you'd understand given the memories that swirl around my head from generations past, very useful for diplomacy with non-humans as I can recall the intricacies of many years of trade, alliances and heroic deeds committed by most but for humans it is all clouded by the suffering of my people from beyond the mists of time..." He sighs and looks away, "However, I digress. You have put yourself at risk, both voluntarily and under order and for that you have my gratitude and my respect. I suppose I just want you to know that while I may be Captain of TrashCan I'm not used to a life of adventure. Oda, for all his qualities is a pilot and mercenary and I get the feeling I may need him close by more and more in the future... with Rev gone I believe that I need to appoint an official second in command, a first mate as it were... I think I could do a lot worse than you, your call..." Embarrassed by his uncharacteristically lengthly discourse he turns to leave before hearing an answer, figuring the human would need time to think about it anyway, on his way out he turns to Cyrus and mutters "... And I want you to know that I would never ask her to do something I wouldn't do myself, that goes for all my crew, human or otherwise."

Chapter 3 As the ship travels through hyperspace, everyone settles into a routine. Most of the crew moves about performing simple work they are skilled at while the survivors drift between their rooms and the rec room where they slowly catch up on the last few years of news. Brossu talks with the survivors individually to see what they have to offer in exchange for their rescue but is mostly disappointed as everything they had was invested in the ship and it's cargo that is now just an expanding cloud of radioactive dust. He does find out that one survivor, Jennifer or is mostly known as Jenny, is a granddaughter of the CEO of Heltsmans. Heltmans is one of the smaller megacorps that is involved in shipping merchandise all over the Consortium. Brossu, faintly remembers hearing about there was a reward offered for any information that lead to discovering the whereabouts of Jennifer Louise Heltman-Beltway, sits in his Captain's chair, mulling over the information of the thankfully uneventful past few days. Still waiting on Genesis' answer regarding his offer of the First Mate position he has been kept busy doing the day to day business of having a ship full of people for a change... well by busy, he chuckles to himself, he means delegating to the ever faithful Oda. Once again thinking about the survivor known to 'Jenny' he makes a decision and as the ship drops out of hyperspace he sends a silent message to TC to scan the local systems news feeds for information on Heltmans and asks her to carefully put feelers out to see why this Jenny might have gone missing in the first place. He doesn't want to seem suspicious but nor is he going to hand a potentially valuable asset over without knowing the whole story... and just whether or not there is more profit to be made by biding his time! Genesis and Cyrus tended to stay to themselves over the next few days but that was mostly due to the survivors almost hero worshiping Genesis for saving them. Genesis secretly kind of enjoyed being a hero, but did they have to constantly harass her? Genesis decided long and hard and after a bit of time debating it, she goes to Brossu "I've decided to accept your offer. I hope to do a good job at it." she said nonchalantly. Cyrus wasn't so sure he was ok with the decision, but he is not Genesis' keeper, she is allowed to do what she wants when she wants to. He just has to clean up the mess afterwards. Oda stays mostly on the bridge even though he is not needed there but that was mostly so he can watch the survivors, especially the one of his species, on the monitors. Nator spends his time gathering salvaged parts together in an attempt to see if it would be possible to rebuild his small ship but there is not enough material to rebuild it nor is there the proper equipment to make the attempt correctly so while looking at the sadly inadequate pile of materials he has gathered and in frustration pops his 50 terabyte chip of the "Definitive Collection of Heavy Metal from the 20th and 21st centuries" into his replica 20th century boom box, that is connected to ship's power, and cranks it to max as he starts putting everything back into inventory in the engineering department. Q gets a chance to stretch his chef skills as he works in the galley during the days of travel. He even gets access to the bridge a few times while delivering food to Oda or Brossu. On the third day the ship drops out of hyperspace on the outskirts of the solar system that Korlandar is located in. A few minutes later, a 3D holographic map is displayed showing what TeeCee's scans has picked up from various system navigation buoys. TeeCee comms Mauze during the travel in hyperspace “I hate to bother you but as you were able to keep power supplied to the survivor's section for a long period of time, could you look over some of the work so of the previous crew did to my spare power core? My diagnostics are showing some irregular power spikes that I can't track down”. Mauze dozes in a dark corner of the cargo bay on a haggard sleeping cot no other survivor wanted. The days had dragged and there was only so much ship to explore. He skirts the line between consciousness and sleep when the comm from TeeCee opens up. "...Could you look over some of the work...?" Mauze leaps from the cot and wrestles the comm unit from his jacket spread on the floor into his ear. "Hello thank you! I mean.. Yes! I mean.. I will do this now! Thank you!" Mauze throws on his jacket, portable bench and tool belt and heads to engineering at a brisk pace while being guided by a string of blinking lights on the wall while TeeCee's voice comes over his comm “The two ladies that were working with Nator to rig up a secondary powercore apparently did not finish their work or did not finish it properly. None of the work matches up with any known schematics or diagnostics that I have so I need someone that is capable in working with powercores. Nator is busy with a personal project and there is no one else that I can turn to for their help at this time”. Brossu waits for the info feed about the young lady called Jenny. It is slow in coming but it does start filling his screen. There are images, recorded video feeds of her boarding a shuttle, the launching of the colony ship Atropa, and various vid clips of her grandfather talking about how his granddaughter is going to be in charge of a new colony. She was to be in charge of 1000 colonist. A short pause then a flurry of vids and news stories flowed down the screen. First one was the news report of the Atropa having hyperdrive problems then there was a report of a core explosion in hyperspace and the ship was reported lost with all hands. A scattering of reports slowly scroll down about how her grandfather offered 100 million credits for information that lead to any evidence of the ship or any survivors. The survivors slowly pick up on how Genesis feels and they start leaving her alone. Nate, listening to his music one day as it blasts through the engineering department while replacing inventory, notices that the Nibirian called “Mauze” is down in one of the rooms in engineering working on the spare powercore. Nate also notices there is a translucent holographic image of young woman standing next to the Nibirian and pointing at something while her mouth is moving but he can not hear what is being said due to the loud music. Brossu Berkesto 's eyes light up, 100 million credits would be a welcome addition to his nest egg, still not wanting to give too much away in case of anyone scanning frequencies that might lead them to want to attempt to liberate the survivors of the Atropa from his care, Brossu begins to search the Korlandar directory for the location of a Heltmans office and discovers that the Heltman's Corp has a weak presence in the system but there is a representative located on the Gas Mining station “Gassy”. Mauze listens intently to TeeCee's debrief and says, "Once I look at current configuration, I will open her up and see what can be done. I will do my best." He cheerfully snaps on his goggles and begins to access the nearest control panel to see what the two ladies TeeCee spoke of did. Nate turns the volume down and wanders over to see what's going on. Nator addresses Mauze, "You there, what's going on?" Upon Nate speaking to Mauze, the holographic image of the woman turns to face him and speak in a familiar voice. This lovely looking image says “Hello Nate, Mauze here has agreed to examine my spare powercore that you and the girls rigged up. I have been monitoring the energy output and there has been some irregularities that have been showing up on my diagnostics. As this is a custom install, none of the specifics have been included in my database so I'm at a lost on doing a self diagnostic exam. You were busy with your personal project so I went to someone that has experience with maintain customized installation of powercores. I have dedicated 25% of my resources to monitoring this situation which is slowing me down on other duties but I felt it was needed so that we don't go boom due to a powercore surge” then looks at Nate with a smug expression. A beacon image of a ship appears on the bridge display as a audio broadcast is played "This is the Lazarus. SoS, This is the cargo ship Lazarus, we are experiencing power loss and have a non functioning drive. Life support is on backup power. This is an SoS" and it repeats itself continuously. Brossu Berkesto runs a large hand down his face and groans... turning to Oda he adds "When did we become a search and rescue vessel old friend? Get on the comms and if we are the nearest vessel lets go lend a hand shall we..." Turning back to the console he fires a quick message to Genesis, taking care to include her ever present guardian in the message for good measure ~First Mate to the bridge, we have a situation~, leaning back in his chair and glaring at the screen as if that will change anything he mutters to himself "And when did I become so _nice_!" Nate looks to the hologram, "Aw come on TeeCee, where's your sense of misadventure? Keep in mind this power core is used and there's no telling how old it is." Nate addresses Mauze, "Let me know if you need help." before turning on his heel to resume putting materials back into stock. Mauze nods before the human, Nate, turns and walks away. He begins a manual inspection of the core and it seems to be doing fine but the readout notes a slight overheating. He next checks the connections and notices some cabling lit up sporadically like festival lights. "Cryo-Fiber... Strange choice." They lead to a capacitor which is visibly creating heat waves. "Hmm..." Mauze removes a driver from his belt and a spider shaped micro-probe from his pack. He drills a small hole into the capacitor and inserts the probe. Mauze click a button on his goggles activating the probe which sends a live feed to them. The probe reveals all it needs to before burning out and failing due to the intense heat. "Yes hello, this is Mauze to TeeCee. Problem found. The cabling is overloading a capacitor. It is set to cycle too much energy back to origin. This is overloading the capacitor. I will shut core down now and improve this work." He flips a switch back on the control panel and begins dismantling the setup to create a direct link. "Interesting work... But too complex. I will simplify... Simple is best” he mumbles as he shutdowns the secondary power system. Genesis hears her message and makes her way to see Brossu. She passes by Cyrus who just nods at her and lets her continue on her way. When she enters she walks up to Brossu "What do we have?" Brossu Berkesto smiles at Genesis and motions to the monitor displaying the stricken ship and replays the S.O.S message to her. "Another rescue operation it seems, after our last little 'adventure' I thought I'd get your read on things before making any hasty decisions... consider it your first real test as First Mate, the joys of command huh!" Genesis reads over the message on the screen. After a few minutes of thinking, she remains stoic, "All seems to be normal, which means extra caution should be adapted. Considering how the last one went, we can't go in assuming things will be as stated. For all we know, they lost power due to pirates or any number of dangers. The whole ship could be dead. However, we are here, and there is a call for help. I suggest answering it, but with caution." Over the comm unit the message changes to a younger female voice “Hello, Hello. Can anyone hear me? We need help. Da got hurt when the core arc'd and Ma is busy with the fire. We are hurting. Corey? Gerald? Natie? Can you hear me? Can you get your superiors to release your shuttle?” then after a brief period of silence a faint reply is heard. A firm masculine voice says “Tish, is that you? Where is your sis or brother? We are scrambling a rescue shuttle but we are hours away even at top speed. The Azreal is clear over on the other side of the system and Korlandar's shuttle is in the middle of a maintenance rebuild work. The techs are slapping it back together but it will be almost 12 hrs before it is flight ready. The nearest shuttle is ours at the study outpost and we are doing everything we can but it will be a while before we can reach ya”. An image of the girl that TeeCee uses shows up on a comm panel near Nator “Nate, I don't have the full data on this Nibirian called Mauze but you seem not to be to impressed with him. Did I make the mistake on testing him with the malfunctioning secondary power system that you and the two girls built with the salvaged parts”? Nate looks at the image that TeeCee is using, "Well, we were in a situation where we were gonna lose a bunch of people and with no warning that maniac blows the wall and almost killed Genesis and some of his own people who were not suited up for vacuum. It's not that he doesn't impress me so much as I don't trust him to do things safely." Nate tugs on his beard while thinking. "I will be checking out the power core and circuit before he finishes and powers it up. It would not surprise me if he removed the surge and overload protection devices." Quin is delivering food on the bridge as the messages play out on the bridges comm unit. Brossu Berkesto sits back in his chair and nods grimly "Oda, plot a course. Genesis, if you wouldn't mind, open a comms channel... somehow i think hearing your voice will be more reassuring than mine!" Brossu quickly takes advantage of the ACTUAL food that Q has brought before sending a message to Cyrus asking him to man the weapons... Genesis secures an open comms channel and tries her best to sound as warm as she can. It may sound strained, but she did her best. "Hello? Can you hear me? My name is Genesis and we received your distress signal. Is everyone over there ok? We'll be coming soon, but we need more information before we proceed." Within a few moments of silence after Genesis's voice rings out over the system comm two voices step over themselves. One is the young girls voice and the other is the masculine voice. “Yes I can” starts the girls voice, “Who are you? Identify yourself and your ship” says the man's voice, then the girl's voice continues “are the intersystem transport ship called Lazarus, Ship ID 6549m2. We got hit by a micro meteorite that damaged our powercore. My Da, Captain Jerrod Rolack, was trying to do a temp fix but something happened and there was a power arc. Ma is down in engineering trying to control the fire from the arc while my sis and brother is tending Da”, the man's overrides hers “Tish, no more talking. We do not know who they are, they could be pirates just sweet talking you. Go radio silence till you hear from me again”. After a few minute of silence, the man's voice is heard “This is communications officer, Gerald Fahning, of the Planetary study outpost 135876492. Please give your ships identification code along with the captains name, your name, and the reason your ship is in our system.” Brossu Berkesto, realizing that they are now dealing with a company man who does things by the book, sits forward and rattles off a formal acknowledgment "This is mule voidjammer TRSHCN125596492 captained by myself, Brossu Berkesto. You have had the pleasure of addressing my first mate Genesis, we are here with a delivery of essential food stuffs for Korlandar when we received the S.O.S from the Lazarus. We are prepared to lend assistance if cleared otherwise we have a job to do." Muting the comms pending a response he mutters to Genesis "Sorry, I forget these systems can be a bit anal at times... back to you." With that he sits back and un-mutes the comms before going back to checking the systems racing news. Mauze drops burnt out cabling in a pile onto the engineering deck floor. "Now... To remove capacitor..." Mauze unhooks the workbench from his back and it clunks to the floor, unfolding itself into proper position as it does so. After a few clicks of dials on the side of the bench an arc-torch with hose attached spits out. Mauze pulls it from the repository and extends the hose to the capacitor. At the same time, the table clamps itself to the deck floor. A small gear with a handle attached rises out from the top of the bench. Mauze lowers his goggles and clicks the torch on... Nothing. "Ah.. I always forget this." He stretches as far as he can to prime the torch before working on the capacitor, but it's too far. He looks to the human, Nate. "Erm...." He opens his mouth and wrings his hands together. "No, no it's okay.." Mauze next tries with all his might to move the bench. But it's to no avail. He looks to Nate once more, scratching rapidly at his head. "Um.. Hello! Human Nate! I'm needing some help... Please spin this. It will not take long..." Nate wanders over to where Mauze is working while singing along with the music. "Whatcha need?" Nate asks Mauze. "Isn't a cutting torch a bit excessive for this job?" Mauze says "Excessive? No, no.. of course is no!" He double taps the side of his goggles and metal blades fan out forming a full face mask. "Turn crank please." Nate replies to Mauze, "Yes, excessive, you do realize that is an overload and surge protection device don't you? It keeps power overloads from burning up critical components such as the ship's main computer. Why exactly did the Atropos explode anyway?" Mauze speaks and his eyes get even beadier than normal. "I know what it is human. All of overload problems are because this. Old crew did sloppy work. I can fix. I will change to simple fail-safe. And the Atropos.. No supplies. Engineering bay had no atmos. Our core was failing for long time. There was nothing to be done." Mauze clicks the arc-torch on which causes a short blue beam erupts from the device and he goes to work on the capacitor. The moment the torch hits metal, Mauze disappears, swallowed into a bright ball of light. Multicolored sparks explode into the air with a sizzle. The entire engineering bay is illuminated in whites, yellows, reds and blues. The miniature fireworks display only lasts about 30 seconds before the whole capacitor is cut loose. The floor immediately surrounding the piece and the Niberian are all covered in black soot, like an old world coal miner. He removed his goggles revealing the only clean brown fur left. "See. Is no problem. Thank you human Nate." He turns a nozzle on the arc-torch and activates it again. A gentle whirring sound moans from the device as he vacuums up the soot from the floor. Nate replies to Mauze, "There's a spare overload protector in the parts bin, use wrenches and replace it properly. What I meant was what caused the original damage to the Apropos?" Genesis waits for Brossu to introduce the ship since she had no idea the code. Once she was given the comms back she resumed "As we said, we are in the area and can offer assistance. Is everyone over there ok? Any injuries? And what's the damage. We have a mechanical sort on board and I can offer medical help if need be. What else is going on? We can't go in blind." An older woman's voice comes over the comm with a hard edge to it “Gerald. If you ever speak to one of my children like that again, I will visit the wrath of God on you. The voices out there are being reasonable and polite while you are being rude” then a short pause before it continues “TRSHCN, thank you for your response and willingness to help. The Captain suffered level 2 plasma burns over approximately 60% of his body. He is in stable condition in our medbay under the watch of our eldest daughter. The damage is to the ship itself is limited to the engineering section. We lost our powercore as I had to eject before it exploded. We suffered collision damage in an asteroid field as we left it. Apparently there was a few high density micro nuggets and we got hit by a few. Most were deflected by the shields but one got through and punched a hole in the powercore. The captain was standing nearby when this happened and got caught in the plasma leak before our engineer was able to shunt the leak”. The sound of a deep breath is heard then the voice continues “Lifesupport is down, we have approximately two hours of breathable air but we can deal with that by moving to our suits. What we can't deal with is the fact that we are dead in space and starting to drift back towards the asteroid field. Can you provide assistance?” Genesis looks at Brossu "You know your ship better than I, can we provide help for them?" Brossu Berkesto sighs as always when faced with a potentially unprofitable situation... "We 'helped' the Atropa, I reckon we can help here too I suppose, TC how long would it take us to reach the Lazerus?" While the AI calculates the route Brossu sends a message to Nator to warn him about a potentially power heavy situation looming... and begging him to not let the Nibiran break anything!! TeeCee displays on the projection the course correction along with the ETA to arrive at the Lazarus. It shows an ETA of 1.754 hours. Genesis reads the data "Ok, we should be able to get there in less than 2 hours. I'm going to need you to hold out until then. Make any necessary preparations and we'll be there as soon as we can." The woman's voice over the comm starts to speak "Thank you for the assist. We will" then alarms sound across the comm from the woman's transmission then the transmission stops suddenly. Brossu Berkesto sighs... again... "TC, make a note, we may need to re-register as a rescue vessel at this rate. Get us underway, use the long range scanners as soon as possible to see if we can at least start preparing our rescue effort with some useful information. Contact the survivors of the Atropa to see if any have any medical training, Genesis can do strange and useful things but I would prefer to keep that under wraps if at all possible given the reaction of her new worshippers." He throws an uncustomary wink at the human female before dragging himself out of his chair. "You've got the bridge Genesis." he states as he heads down to the maintenance decks to track down Nator. Genesis really has no idea how she "has the bridge". Does she hold on to it? TeeCee 's holoprojection stands to one side of the Mauze and Nate, watching their interaction with interest, speaks up "Nate, before my scanners got blocked I got a scan on the Atropa and computed with an 89.819476% that there was a bomb detonated inside the ship which caused the personal to become the remaining survivors. As for the reason for the recent destruction of the Atropa, I was receiving feed from all the sensors, cameras, and other active electronics while I was connected to the ship. After analyzing the information I can offer a probability on what caused the final explosion." TeeCee 's holoprojection image appears on the arm of Brossu's chair "Having the bridge means you are in charge while the Captain is not on the bridge. As long as your commands do not endanger the crew, the ship, or it's cargo, what you say goes". Oda Xasse spins the pilot chair around to face Genesis "Any commands?". Genesis shrugs "Just plot a course for the ship and get the others brought up to the current situation." Mauze says, "oh” then repeats, "Oh... I did not understand your meaning human. High ranking crew said we were attacked and left to die." Looks to TeeCee's hologram. "A bomb? This is very strange... The ship was moving trade goods. Maybe high crew is not honest... What was reason for explosion TeeCee?" Nate tugs on his beard, "A bomb? somebody had to plant it, now the question is who did it and why?" "Where did the Atropos start at and where was it heading?" TeeCee retains her pleasant smile "The Atropos was scheduled to begin a new colony in the system 32659874 or as humans call it "Cat's Eye". Jennifer Heltman, who you call Jenny, is the granddaughter of the CEO of the Heltman Cartel, a micro megacorp. She was to be in charge of the colony once the ship reached it's destination." then pauses before continuing "Speculation can only be made as access to the bomber in not possible due to his or her identity is unknown and their life status is unknown. Atropos was launched from Tau Altar system and it's destination was filed for system 32659874 or as humans call it "Cat's Eye". TeeCee stands still with a smile waiting for another question or request. Mauze writhes his hands together looking distressed. "Jenny... She was always kind to me on the Atropos. But I could not find her after your rescue. Erm...I didn't know who was or that she was to be leader." Mauze looks to TeeCee again, "Where is Jenny now? Maybe she can say more." TeeCee turns and smiles to Mauze "The being you refer to as Jenny is on the Laos deck (third level) in the commons room as that is the closest non-restricted room to her assigned domicile".while displaying a small internal map (only the non-restricted areas display which is about half the ship) with the room blinking yellow "I highlighted the room for contrast". Nate mutters to himself "This really isn't my thing. Who stood to profit if the Atropos didn't make it to Cat's Eye?" Mauze says, "I was only a passenger, human Nate. After explosion, many vital crew were lost. Maybe there is other colonies building on system 32659874... Erm cat's eye. What you humans call a rival? But, I just don't know." Nate asks "TeeCee, are any other groups colonizing in the Cat's Eye?" TeeCee assumes the stance similar to a teacher as her image changes to a human instructor “System 32659874 is located inside the Prosperity Chain which the House Azuria has a strong presence at. There are numerous other small megacorps along with individual startups scattered in the Chain. At present count, there is over two thousand five hundred eighty one entities occupying the Chain or have a presence in it. System 32659874 had a colonization permit filed 3.45 standard years ago with the standard non-colonization clause within five years, it reverts back to open status. With the initial startup cost of 150 trillion credits, the colony and the mining prospects was projected to earn 25 trillion credits per year before expenses. After five years of production, the colony was projected to reach the break even status”. Teecee pauses with a puzzled expression. “Puzzling” she mutters then without warning, the image winks out. The bridge stays quiet as Oda keeps an eye on his station. The holodisplay keeps a live display of various objects that the ships scanners has seen. Brossu Berkesto reaches the maintenance deck and checks for Nator's location using a nearby terminal. Seeing he is with the strange new Nibiran he increases his speed to 'amble' from 'mooch' and enters the room as TC blinks out of existence... taking a moment to assess the scene he sees no obvious signs of disaster and steps forward announcing the recent events and upcoming rescue mission part 2. He gives the human a look that has come to be known as the 'I know that YOU know what you are doing and therefore I'M not about to interfere... but make sure that ANYONE else knows what they are doing... please', a complicated amount of information to convey in one short raised eye ridge and a sidewards glance but confident that Nator is on the same wavelength he heads over to the humans archaic sound generator and peruses the available tracks, nodding at each 'classic' he comes across. Nate looks at Mauze, "We need to get with the others and plan what we are going to do, and not go off half cocked. I don't want a repeat of you blowing the wall and almost killing everyone." That being said Nate wanders to the intercom to open a conference with Oda and Genesis. "Just who do you want on this rescue mission other than myself? I probably have the most experience working outside of a ship." Pointing at Mauze Nate continues, "I would prefer not to involve this one since he is not part of the crew..." Genesis pondered the question asked "I would argue 'that one' could prove useful on this mission as we may need help transporting wounded or help fixing things around the ship." Mauze says "Human Nate is right. I am not crew. The Atropos was mistake... You asked me to lead.. This is not my skill. I will not make mistake again." He gathers up tools from the overhead bin and gets back to work on the secondary power core. Mauze considers his next words, thinking of the prospect of another long span of quiet time on the ship. He shifts uncomfortably and speaks over his shoulder. "But.. Here or with you... I do not wish to stay without work. Wherever I would be useful, I would like to go." Genesis nods as she monitors the feed of security cameras along with the live intercom from the engineering room while sitting in the Captain's chair, with the holodisplay continuing to count down their ETA to the disabled ship, she replies to the conversation there as it happens. "That's good enough for me. I expect you to behave yourself then as you were not doctrine as a member of this crew. Nate, I'd like you to be with him to monitor. If anything happens I expect you to notify me or Brossu immediately. Know that if we do deem you a liability, I will not hesitate to handle you in my own way. Are we clear?" Nate nods as he answers "Genesis, that works for me. Now let me check my suit and make sure it's ready to go." Brossu Berkesto continues to look through Nator's music files while pretending not to be paying attention to the conversations going on behind him. Anyone monitoring him closely though would see the slightest hint of a smile ~This 'crew' actually has potential!~ Seeing no Louhos music he mischievously selects 'We are the Champions' by the ancient human band known as Queen and heads back across the room slapping Nator on the back as he does "See you in the airlock and who knows, after this you might even have yourself an apprentice" he adds with a cheeky wink, which probably looks more like a grimace on Brossu's face, "you never know, he might even teach you a thing or two as well...". Feeling more cheerful than he has in days Brossu guffaws with laughter as he heads off to run the necessary checks on his suit and equipment while sending a comm to Oda “Assist TC with the docking then get your kit and get to the airlock, I want you with me in case this one goes south too!” As the ship travels through space, Mauze continues to work on the powercore and buffer with Nator watching over his work and helping if it appears help is needed. Mauze was able replace the damage components with sturdier parts which seems to increase the efficiency of the secondary power system. Oda has been handling all the piloting as TC seems to be non-responsive to any request. He also noticed that the processor and memory usage has maintained an almost max status for the last hour. Genesis sitting in the Capt's chair has noticed on the security feeds that various sections of the ship seems to go dark then return to normal. One monitor across the bridge behind Oda and Genesis blinks a quick scroll of text “Lifesupport disabled. Command canceled. Lifesupport purge initiated. Command canceled. Power overload. Command canceled.” then the screen goes quiet as the text “......” is displayed continuously down the screen while the earlier text scrolls out of sight. Walking out of the engineering area and towards the airlock and suit room, Brossu is surprised by a series of events that every spacer stays aware of. First the airflow from the ducts stops briefly then his ears pop as there was a pressure shift somewhere nearby but the last event was surprising to him as the lights in the corridor goes dark then super bright before going back to normal. Brossu Berkesto heads to the nearest AI comm point and glares into the lens... "TC, what the hell is going on... I'm pretty sure Life Support just dropped in this section of the ship for a moment and I've just about had my fill of machines trying to kill me recently. Full self diagnostic report immediately and quarantine yourself until told otherwise please." Shouting back through to the maintenance room Brossu then requests that Nator, and Mauze, take a look at the diagnostics coming through soon. Knowing that Nator is a salvager with mad engineering skills rather than an AI servicer he hopes that the quirky Nibiran may be able to assist with recognising any issues with the logs. Patching through to the bridge he then requests that Oda maintain complete control of the ship and closely monitor the life support systems for glitches. Appealing directly to Genesis he asks "Can your nano-whatsits 'talk' to machines at all? I'm concerned that TC has sustained damage that she is unable to tell us about, I'm quarantining the AI until further notice so all ships functions will be under the bridge control. I'm coming back up now." On that note he sets off at a run back to the bridge, puffing and panting under the weight of his shell. Genesis goes over the details as displayed on screen before answering "Unfortunately, no, I am unable to do that." She figures out what she can in time for Brossu's return. Nate races to the shop's terminal of the ship's computer and calls up the life support system logs then takes a good long look at the mystery commands and attempts to decipher the source. Nate looks to Mauze, "This is some odd coding. the problem seems to have started after we had talked to TC about the Atropooo Oh holy hells!" Mauze says "Mmmm...Software is not my skill. But I will try." He says just before Nate directs the ship's computer to print the last page of the log to the bridge and runs off after Brossu with the torn off the printout to shove it into Brossu's hands, "Boss, dude, we have a serious problem. We've stumbled into a conspiracy bigger than anything else ever! We were talkin to TC about the Atropos and who would want it destroyed just before these commands went out. Look at the source, they are from the computer itself. I'll bet a month's wages the code is somewhere in a software update! Whoever wanted the Atropos destroyed must have spread some huge credits to get this code into the updates." Mauze sends the logs to his goggles and browses through the errors in one eye trying to spot a mechanical problem. At the same time, he briskly makes his way to Laos deck. "I will see if Jenny is safe." He keeps his cool as crew members and survivors frantically run about, and all manner of alarms echo through the ship. Brossu Berkesto stomps heavily down the corridor towards the bridge shouting into his comms and then directly at his friend once the bridge doors open. "Oda, we need to go to total manual controls TC could go rogue at any moment. Check and confirm that she has quarantined herself as commanded, if not shut her down until we get terra firma under our feet once more, I don't fancy being adrift in space with a potentially homicidal AI in charge..." looking suddenly alarmed he speaks again quickly, directing his voice towards the nearest comms port "Not that I think TC is homicidal, but if she is infected with some rogue code lets just be safe huh." Turning to Genesis he gives his best attempt at a smile, "I'm still not 100% sure of what you can and cant' do so please forgive any outlandish requests. I get the impression I'm going to have my hands full here and since we are nearly at the Lazarus I'm going to need someone to lead the rescue party, fancy going aboard a strange and potentially dangerous ship again? Or would you prefer to stay aboard a less-strange but potentially more dangerous ship?" He adds with a wink. "Take the hover loader with you, it should make transporting any casualties quicker and easier..." As the time tics by rapidly, a few things become apparent. Mauze has skills that compliment the skills that Nator has but in a different manner, Genesis has just discovered a limitation of her abilities, and Brossu has a soft spot for his crew even if they are mostly humans. Oda tries to do what Brossu wants and can only report partial success as the ship's command and controls are locked on manual but TC is not in quarantine mode yet. Quin, the new cook who is a Qu'arian, is over in a corner of the bridge with a crystal orb in his pseudopods. With caressing movements he strokes the orb then stiffens before undulating over to stop next to Brossu, who just took command of his chair back, and speaks through a small translator that floats to the surface on his chest “Commander of this vessel. I can sense your electrical crew member in a running battle against a hostile entity that came to this vessel after you requested a data search and retrieval.” while one of his pseudopods continues to stroke the orb that seems to almost crackle with electricity. Continuing to speak in a strange, almost lilting electronic voice that is nether male or female “Your electronic crew member has been able to keep up with the hostile entity but your attempts to confine her is causing her problems in fighting this foreign entity”. Oda brings up the visuals of the Larazus while stating “15 minutes out”. Brossu Berkesto is startled out of his reverie by the Qu'arian. "Wh-hat? How do you...?" Spluttering to a stop he takes a minute to process the information and scour his knowledge of Qu'arians which is limited. Realising that the chef is referring to TC and the rogue code he bursts into motion "So TC isn't infected... yet..." and utters a Louhosian curse "...Kwrchhyq!!" Quickly he releases all restraints on TC's capabilities and sends a message to Nator and Mauze letting them know that TC is ok but at risk and that they shouldn't divert her attention unless an emergency occurs. "Oda, make sure that we keep TC as free as possible and isolate our systems from outside contact, I don't want this... this... whatever it is spreading any further." Turning to Q he queries "Can you do... anything to help? What can you do?!?" Quin makes a motion similar to a shrug but it looks almost like an undulating wave that rolls across it's body as it speaks in that strange voice "I do not know, The electronic beings environment is so different from what a Druski ship has but I can try". With that the Qu'arian raises the crystal orb up to what one could assume to be it's head while running multiple pods over the orb which crackles with electricity. Genesis before she could respond to Brossu, hears the mysterious voice of the Qu'arian who managed to stay on the bridge after delivering food, so she speaks up calmly when the others stopped talking "I can go on the Lazarus. I think it would be best if you stayed here to make sure TC gets fixed." Brossu Berkesto smiles warmly, enjoying having someone to work with "Yes boss." He confirms with a wink. Nate looks at Brossu in the monitor "Hey boss, I can run the Hover Loader, where do you want me?" As the Lazarus slowly grows in size on the display as the distance lessens, details can be seen. It is an older mule of the Katarhuller class and they engine section has it's powercore hatch open due to the core being ejected. A sensor reading shows the residual signature of a core explosion slowly fading into the background. Quin settles down towards the floor in what appears to be a quivering pool of electric blue jello with the crystal orb resting half enveloped by it as Oda focuses on the docking sequence while he guides the two ships together. Tish speaks over the comm “I see your ship on approach. Docking hatch is on the port side. The med bay where Da is at. Ma is back in engineering trying to get the hatch closed. Sis says Da is hurt bad”. Brossu Berkesto smirks and nods towards Genesis, "Ask the boss, Nator. Genesis'll be leading on this one." With that he settles into a chair by the bank of monitors along one wall and begins the sequence to monitor TC as closely as he can without disturbing the AI... "Oda, remember, I want zero data transferral between us and the Lazarus, I don't know what this is or how it spreads but I'm not about to be responsible for a digital plague!" Mauze takes a look around Laos deck for Jenny but can't spot her. He opens a comm to the bridge. "Yes hello.. I could not find TeeCee's problem.. If I am needed again, my channel is open. Bye... Er- Out." Genesis shrugs "Let's all meet up at the deck and we'll go from there. Assess the situation and decide who needs to go where." She opens the comm back to the Lazarus "We'll get to him first and make sure he is ok." Nate looks at Genesis, "You got it boss." just before running to the workshop and hopping into his space suit. Once he is suited up Nate runs to the deck where everyone is to meet." The minutes creep by as Trshcn slowly maneuvers into position to dock with the drifting Lazarus then a soft thump is felt throughout the ship as Oda says “Docking locked”. Quin undulates over to a console where there was a connection port and before anyone realizes, he extends a pseudopod into the port. Oda mutters something in his native tongue with a surprised tone then spins around to face Brossu while pointing at the Qu'arian “It's inside TeeCee”. The holodisplay is flashing 00:00 on it's ETA meter. Brossu Berkesto glares at the Qu'arian but makes no move to disturb the creature. Heaving a huge sigh and rolling his shoulders and shell in the biggest shrug his Nibiran bodyguard has ever seen Brossu simply states "If it can help then I'm not about to stop it, she is already up against it from what I've heard so unless Q is the source it can't do any more harm right?" You just concentrate on taking as much off've TC's plate as possible and preventing data transfer to the Lazarus, I'll monitor things here and if things start to go badly we can always lock it in a jar or something right??" Switching to the comms he checks in with the crew in the dock, "Docking complete, proceed with care, in and out with the survivors, we can drop them on Korlandar when we finally make this delivery and they can arrange pick-up and reclamation of their vessel at their own leisure, the casualty is a priority and if we can tow the Lazarus clear of the asteroid field we will do so, Genesis has authority when aboard. Brossu out." Mauze stumbles a bit at the bump of the docking procedure and rushes back to the deck to meet with the rest of the crew. Jenny turns around as the sound of Mauze's voice but only catches a glimpse of his tail as rushes back down the hallway. Tish comms and sounds almost like she was crying “You're here. Thank you so much. We are in our suits now. Atmospheric environment is not survivable now. The air is unbreathable and the heat has seeped out so it is cold in here.”

The airlock chimes to indicate it is ready to be used to anyone standing outside of it. The panel inside the airlock shows the environmental readings from the other side. The readings indicate the pressure is compatible but air is no longer breathable. The temperature reading is extremely low and still dropping. Nate locks down his helmet, opens his oxy valve and enters the airlock. Genesis gets her suit and mask on before she makes sure the others follow suit. She opens the airlock and looks into the ship. She nods at Tish's command "We'll be there soon. We'll move injured out first." She looks at Nate "Let's get the injured in the ship first, I can patch them up later. Once everything else is secured, we can move on from there." Upon opening the airlock, Genesis and the others are looking at a portable medbay with an adult male inside that has plasma burns over most of his body and 3 suited people which one of them is shorter than the other two. The two adult sized beings are female and a male while the smaller one is female who makes a quick wave gesture at the group. Tish sounds over the comm “Thank you for coming. This is my sis Kat” and gestures to the woman “and this is my brother Dwight” then to the suited man. “Ma is still down in the engine room, locking down the last of the hatches but she said she would be right here in a few”. Kathrine speaks up “Ok, Jabberwalky, let them speak.” while looking down at the smaller figure before looking up at the group and offering a shake “Sorry to have interrupted your schedule but I need to get our father to your medbay as this portable bed only has about another half an hour of power”. The brother is gripping the medbed in preparation to pushing it. Nate grabs hold of the retractable handle on the end of the med bed and pulls it into the airlock while the brother pushes from the other end then leads and guides the portable medbed along with the Brother and Sister to TRSHCN's medbay where the sister glances around then with comfort born of familiarity of a doctor, she hooks the bed up to the various connections on the wall. Nate watches the woman connect the medbed to ship's power and heads back to the airlock. Tish stays at the airlock looking at Genesis and the others as her brother and sister float her father away "Well? Mother should be along shortly". Genesis calmly watches the situation "Then we wait for her, but you should go with your father. We can make sure your mother gets there safely, but it's no longer safe here." Tish stands with her arms folded across her chest but gestures no then refolds her arms "Standard protocol on our ship is that one of us stays at the airlock if we have people here. It has been the rule before I was born, it is the rule that I grew up with, and it is the rule that I will keep. Kat went with Da because she is our doctor, Dwight went because he has the strength to carry Da if the medbed looses power. I'm here because I'm neither of those but I have eyes, ears, and can report if needed. There is nothing on board that would be worthwhile as we are just an ore freighter that carries supplies to the miner's hub in the Asteroids". Genesis shrugs her shoulders "If you insist. Can you tell me more about the status of the ship before all of this happened? Were you attacked?" Tish scuffs the toe of her suit against the flooring then snaps to an alert stance while looking at Genesis. "Attack? Did we say or indicate we were attacked? We got hit by a superdense micro rock that punched through our shields while leaving the asteroid fields. That rock damaged our powercore which cause my Da to be burned like he is" Tish's voice started out with an incredulous tone but has risen up to an almost hysterical tone " and you're asking about the status of our ship. The status of our ship is the following. We are dead in space, my pa might be dying, my ma is trying to get the ejection doors closed manually while our home, our ship, is drifting closer to the small group of floating rocks that crippled her". Genesis holds up her hand "Pause. One second. Take a deep breath. Your father is being taken care of, however I would like to point out I could do a better job of healing him if I were with him like I suggested, but I digress. We'll get your mother and you out of here soon, but I need you to remain calm. If you can't I will be forced to take drastic measures to ensure your cooperation. Are we clear?" Genesis' face remains level as she looks at the girl, giving no indication if she is joking. Nate gets to the airlock in time to hear what Genesis says to Tish. "What's goin on Genesis? Do you need a hand with the girl?" Brossu Berkesto , who has been listening to the exchange in the dock via the comms chuckles to himself at the youngsters continued mixture of professional attitude and just plain attitude. Knowing that Genesis can handle the situation though allows him to focus on monitoring TC's plight and the incursion of Q into the mix. As Tish finishes her sentence regarding the ship drifting he looks up briefly and asks Oda "Let's see if we can get a solid enough hold of the Lazarus to begin towing her into orbit around a nearby planet, hmm?" Oda Xasse nods as his fingers fly across the control panel "We can get a solid tractor lock on it and as long as we keep it at a slow accel, Trashcan, and neither should the Lazarus, won't suffer any damage. It will reduce the ship's agility in dodging anything but our shields are probably better than that old ship" and Oda spins his chair around to face Brossu "That ship is a full fifty years older than the Trashcan and is well worn in comparison. We've kept TeeCee well maintained but from the scanner readings, that ship is in need of some serious dock time maintenance". Quin quivers and shivers as what appears to be an electrical storm appears inside the crystal ball. The crackling electricity doesn't appear normal as it has an almost malevolent appearance in the form of black sparks bouncing inside the crystal ball. Quin pulls away from the socket then undulates over to near Brossu and it's strange voice sounds out of the translator box "This is dangerous digital entity. Your digital being, TeeCee, and I trapped this entity inside my orb of sight. Your digital being is busy fixing damage done to her host shell and asked not to be bothered till she indicates". He starts to undulate away but stops a short distance away and the box speaker floats around towards Brossu "I will hold onto this orb as it is mine but I will need a way to keep it unable to contact or interact with your digital beings host shell long time". Brossu Berkesto nods at Oda, "Calculate a safe course to the nearest planetary body that we can get into orbit around, if this thing is as fragile as you say we'll get it into an orbit and leave it for them to collect once we've got them safe... if slow and steady wins the race lets fire the starting blaster shall we!" Knowing that the Nibiran needs no further instructions he turns his attention to the Qu'arian, "I'm not entirely sure what you did but if it's worked then I thank you... lets get that thing down to maintenance, I think a box made of lead shielding is in order..." he heads off muttering to himself about suspending it in dampener solution and other such extreme methods for preventing the flow of digital information... After Brossu walks out of the bridge muttering, Quin moves over to the air vent and removes the cover quickly before sliding up inside and closing the cover. Quin takes the orb with him. Genesis glares at Tish as Nate responds, giving her a warning look "No, she's fine. Just waiting for her mother to get here and we'll head back to the ship for treatment. Then we'll go from there." A minute after Nate walked up and spoke to Genesis, an older woman sounds over the intercom "If you all want to clear the airlock, I will cycle through" and Tish moves, without a word, from the Lazarus's airlock to the TRSHCN's airlock and waits for everyone else to join her so the door can be closed. Genesis listens to the voice and follows Tish to their airlock. Nate follows Genesis to the airlock After everyone left the Lazarus airlock, it cycles shut and performs it's function to reveal a tall voluptuous female standing in a worn but well maintained engineers spacesuit "Permission to come aboard?". Genesis motions for the woman "We wouldn't be here if you weren't allowed to come aboard. We'll treat injuries first and then worry about the rest after." The woman nods and steps into TRSHCN airlock before reaching over to slap the cycle button which closes the door and starts the process of cycling the air so that everyone can enter TRSHCN properly. Once the light goes green and the inner door opens, the woman removes her helmet along with the young girl to reveal humana with dusky skin coloration, Asian features, with a short crop red hair. The young girl has similar features but with brown eyes instead of green like her mothers. Thrusting a hand out towards Genesis, the woman says "I'm Abby, Tish's mother and also the first mate of the Lazarus. I'm assuming my husband has already been moved to your medbay since I'm not seeing Kathrine or Dwight. My girl is a fully licensed doctor so my husband is in good hands. I need to speak to your captain and your pilot. If they decide to try to tow the Lazarus, they will rip her apart". Genesis looks at the woman with no sign of any emotion, though in her head many questions are forming "As of right now, you are speaking to the Captain. Until we can be assured you all pose no threat, we can all meet and discuss the next steps, until then I ask you to come to the medbay and get patched up as well." Nate stands there fingering his vibro-blade and looking intimidating. Brossu Berkesto reaches the maintenance deck and looks on a nearby console for the location of Mauze, hoping that Q will catch him up soon he hunts down the Nibiran and explains the issue with the, now infected, crystal orb. "So, Nator tells me you are something of a mad scientist, something I would normally discourage on my ship. However we have a unique problem that may require a unique solution, we need to make sure that this virus is completely isolated and unable to establish contact with anything... in any way... on any wavelength. We can't risk just ejecting it from the ship so what would be your best plan of action?" Mauze hears Brossu call out to him halfway to the airlock and turns. He quietly listens to the dilemma and considers it, rubbing the back of his head with both hands. "Mmm... My bench may scan this crystal. It is not connected to your ship. It is maybe not a danger this way. May I see it?" Abby gives Nate a quick flick of a look before focusing on Genesis “How the frac can an injured man, a young male, two woman and a young child be a threat to you and your ship? Our ship is without power, we have no weapons” and glares at Nate “so you can stop fingering that bloody knife and quit acting tough at my daughter and me” before returning back to Genesis. “I don't know what you all have experienced before coming to this system but this is a small colony and we go out of the way to help each other. As you stated you are the captain then I formally request that you do not attempt to tow the Lazarus. With no power, it's structural reinforcement shielding is not active and all that connects the two ends together is a spinal shaft and container ribbing. You try to pull the Lazarus with a tow, you will rip it in two.” Nate chuckles at Abby, "Lady I ain't threatened nobody yet. You hailed us for a rescue, and all we get from you and your daughter is attitude." Nate turns to Genesis, "Boss if they don't want their pile of scrap towed we should just leave it there and let the meteors finish it off." Nate glares at Abby, "And it won't be no skin off my ass if they want to stay with the hulk." Nate crosses his arms and leans back against the bulkhead. Brossu cocks his head to one side "Connected or not, I want the damn thing isolated somehow..." taking a deep breath and realizing that being the Captain sometimes calls for tact and diplomacy he adds, "... please." Unsure about where the Qu'arian with the orb is he gestures vaguely back the way he came and explains "Q has the orb and should hopefully be along presently, I'm not a hundred percent sure what he did, or even how, but can I trust you to put my mind at ease and find a way to stop, if not 'kill', this thing?" Oda sits in the pilot's chair preparing the necessary power allocations to tow the Lazarus, with TC out of the picture for now he has to juggle some of the more important systems to ensure that the ship remains fully functional in the event of a problem occurring. With one eye on the monitor showing the docking area he notices the human female from the Lazarus waving her arms around in a state of near panic and tunes into the audio feed just in time to hear about the dangers of towing the powerless ship... quickly he patches the information through to Brossu. "Boss, we may have a problem..." Brossu Berkesto waits awkwardly with the Nibiran for Q to arrive with the orb, as he does his comms crackle into life and Oda's frantic message is relayed to him. Smacking himself in the face with a large open palm the Louhos scolds himself for his stupidity, "Brossu you moron, of course you can't tow a cargo ship with no power... you've been on board a planet hopper for too long old fool!!" Holding a hand up to forestall any comment from Mauze he sends a quick message to Oda, "Abort the tow, we'll rip the damn thing apart. How long do we have until the asteroid field becomes unavoidable?" While Oda makes the calculations he turns back to Mauze, "Can we supply power to the Lazarus' energy reinforcements quickly at all?" After a few minutes of waiting, Brossu realizes that Quin is not going to show up so he heads over to a console to see if he can locate the missing Qu'arian, he keeps his attention on Mauze so that the Nibiran know's that he is still interested in what the ingenious engineer might suggest with regards to supply basic power to the stricken Lazarus. Genesis merely looks into the woman's eyes as she gets closer to her, not appearing threatening, but definitely intimidating "I do not do anything lightly here. For all we know, you're space pirates who are pretending to be injured, or injured one of your men to make it look believable. You are on our ship, so you will stop showing attitude to the people who are here to help. I've heard what you had to say, and for the moment we have no plans to tug on your ship. You are welcome to get patched up in the medical bay, and we can discuss future actions there. If I so much as believe you are a mild inconvenience to any of these people on this ship, I will not hesitate to knock you all out of the nearest airlock. Do I make myself clear?" After a few moments Abby sighs “Fine you want me to apologize then I'm sorry for disrupting your effort to go to whatever client you have to deliver whatever goods you have just because our ship had an accident. We will go peacefully to your medbay and waste time getting an unneeded exam” and waits. Genesis holds up a finger "Also, cut the sarcasm. I find myself getting annoyed. And I don't get annoyed often." With that, she escorts the woman to the medbay. Nate follows Genesis and Abby to the sick bay. Time slowly crawls by as people move about and perform their chores or decide on their next action. Brossu, without the help of TC, can not locate the Qu'arian with the interior sensors. The crew of the Lazarus is contained in the medbay and follows all the orders that are given to them while the Atropos survivors are staying in their quarters. Oda is working on the trajectory and alignment to get the ship behind the Lazarus to slowly stop it's drift into the asteroid field and give it a slight push in the other direction without causing to much damage due to the compression the ship will suffer. Mauze follows Brossu, lost in thought about the problem. Calculations, wiring patterns and past engine modifications deconstruct themselves in his mind like holographic blueprints. He's utterly unaware he hasn't replied to the boss in well over a few minutes. Suddenly Mauze blurts out, "YES MAYBE.. Er.. I will help you find friend Q... He can maybe fix crystal if i cannot. And I will check engineering. Maybe secondary power core can be overcharged to the Lazarus...But it seems checking if core can handle strain is best idea, first." Mauze sends a telepathic signal out just like Q taught him. "Friend Q... Are you still here? We have a problem that I think you can help with." Mauze hears his friend's mummer in his mind "Corn my friend, happy to hear your mind. What problem is there that one such as myself is needed" Brossu Berkesto nods his assent. "Do what you can, but clear it with Nator first..." Pounding his heavy fist in impotent rage the Louhos storms back towards the bridge, with Genesis heading up the 'welcoming party', Oda taking care of the damage limitation and the others all engaged in their various specialties the 'Captain' of the ship is feeling more and more out of his depth with the recent turn of events. Brossu storms on to the bridge radiating bridle fury which causes Oda to pause and twitch an ear while calmly asking "Whata eating atya boss"? On the bridge display information about the Lazarus is shown. It is an ore hauler, it is fully loaded with a mass of 100,000 tons of raw ore, it was on route to the solar furnace "Hades" that is located in orbit around the inner most planet. Brossu Berkesto begins to rant and rave at Oda, "What's eating me? WHAT'S EATING ME??? I've taken a crew of bloody humans against my better judgement, been attacked by pirates and corporate war-bots, missed out on prime salvage due to some unknown threat which also lost me half of my crew!! And now... and NOW we are shell deep in the middle of another bloody space rescue operation!!!" Seeing Oda offer a helpless shrug the Louhos calms somewhat, sighs heavily and drops down into his chair... "Sorry old friend, you are always the poor sounding board for my frustrations, if I didn't pay you to stick around I doubt you would at times. I'm just frustrated, we have a delivery schedule to keep and even though it was generous I don't like to be late. I'm a trader dammit, not a galactic rescue operative..." with another sigh he pleads with his friend, "Any news on TC or is she still needing her downtime?" Oda scratches himself then shrugs again "I got a brief text from her on the display and it basically stated "IO fudged up. Command line inputs usable but GUI hours before use" then turns his attention back to a monitor that has text scrolling on it "It's TC. She wants you to know that the Qu'arian is holed up in a spare kitchen storage bin. She says the interior sensors have been tracking movement in the airducts since the Atropas survivors have come aboard. She also wanted to let you know that she seals off any sensitive area when movement is detected near those areas". Nate leans against the wall of the medical bay and looks at Abby, "How do you propose to move your ship out of the way of the asteroid field then?" Abby looks at Nate "A few years ago, we had a system failure due to an abrupt solar flare from the twins. The Azreal was able to get behind us and push without causing to much structural damage, due to having all the containers locked in the ribbing,there was almost no compression or shearing. All we need is the Lazarus be pushed out of the micro gravity field that the asteroid field generates and she can free float safely until a system ship shows up. The Lazarus is already in lockdown mode anyway due to the power loss and there is nothing of value on her". Nate looks to Genesis, "Is this somethin we can do boss? Correction, are we willin to give this a try?" Genesis merely shrugs "It depends if Brossu is willing. He knows this ship better than I do. If we can, we'll go for it." Nate replies to Genesis, "Good point, let me know what you need from me, I'm heading back to the work shop." Mauze heads to engineering to see what can be done about supplying the Lazarus with power. As he does, Mauze receives Q's reply. He transmits back with a clarity his speaking fails to convey, "There is an entity trapped in a crystal... I need you to make contact and see what she wants. She appears to be a great danger to the ship. I need your guidance to solve this problem." Q replies back mentally "My friend corn, I've extracted the digital being you are referring to and have it contained in my crystal orb. The ship's digital entity that is called TeeCee is ok and repairing damage done to her coding. I requested from the being known as the Captain a suspension container that will isolate my orb from any possible contact with the ship. Maybe I did not make my request clear enough. At this moment, I'm containing the orb inside my being to minimize any possible contact with any unguarded communication ports". Mauze arrives back at engineering, unfurls his bench and plugs in all manner of wires to various ports of the main console. He begins a series of tests to see if the freshly wired secondary core would be enough to power the engines of the Lazarus. Mauze looks over the spare powercore with an eye to refit it to the Lazarus and knows that the power demand would be to much for the core to supply for the engines. The best he could think of is that it might, and that is just barely, supply power to the structural reinforcement fields along the spine and ribs but it would only last maybe 5 to 10 minutes before the core is drained and need to be refitted/recharged at a major spacedock. Mauze knows that ships this size and age required a very large, high powered cores due to how inefficient their systems are. The family from the Lazarus gathers around their captain, their father and husband, while the daughter who is a doctor works on him. Nate heads back to the workshop but does not find the Nibarian known as Mauze at the workshop so Nate hits play on his boom box before he pulls up specs for the Lazurus class ship and studies the power system while pulling out a doodle pad and starts sketching circuits. Short time later, Nate heads back to the medical bay with his doodle pad to show Genesis. Nate gestures at the drawing, "Genesis, look at this, if we use the life support transformer to step up the power of our power unit we can supply the Lazurus with just enough power to the engines to move her out of the asteroid field." Genesis looks over the rather crude drawing and nods "All right, get started. Contact Brossu and let him know that's what we're planning on doing. I'll let the family know." Nate "You got it boss." Nate heads back to the shop to grab some tools before heading to the air lock to start rewiring the transformer. Nate spends the better part of couple hours working on rewiring the transformer but each time he tests it, a fuse blows. Genesis walks over to the Lazarus crew to brief them on their plans. The family takes the news of what Nate is attempting calmly but don't make any comments. Nate replaces the fuse with a higher amperage fuse and tries it again. Oda uses his age old skills to settle the trashcan directly aft and eases TC into position between the Lazarus and the asteroid field then locks the tractor beams on Lazarus before reversing the polarity of the beam to repulsor with as little amount of jarring as possible he gently fires the trading vessels engines until the larger cargo ships momentum has halted. Making sure no major amount of damage has been done, he then begins to slowly push it the other way. Sensors show the ship compressing among the spine where the containers are held but it is within the safety ratings at the moment. Inside the Lazarus, various loose items are tossed about, some monitors crash to the floor, slight lose of atmospheric environment in the spine is registered on internal sensors and external sensors but since the pressure doors are all activated, the loss is insignificant before it fades. Mauze is still studying the ore ship and twisting out the schematics in his head in an attempt to make up the difference in the power requirement but the difference is to great with what resources he has. Nate replaces the fuse and tries again only to blow another fuse elsewhere. A moment after the second one blows the airlock cycles shut then the trashcan detaches from the Lazarus and moves away from the airlock. Genesis feels the ship shudder and the propulsion systems slowly spool up as she is speaking to the Lazarus family. Mauze transmits a message to Brossu. "Boss Brossu... Our ship's core is not strong enough. It seems another power is needed... Or maybe fix the Lazarus can work." As he waits for a reply he shifts his attention to the crystal since it seems relying on the secondary powercore directly saving the Lazarus seems futile. He rifles through engineering before finding some inch-thick duroglass. He slices and bonds 6 pieces into a box shape. Next, Mauze, slices a hole in the box and fits a pressurized seal with a handle. Finally, over the course of about an hour he fashions a simple communication device from a old, spare speaker, a broken electromagnetic field reader, and a malfunctioning EMG pulse pistol from his personal supply. He fits this to the side of his duroglass box, the speaker on the outside and the hardware in. From what he knows of Q, perhaps the being in the crystal can be communicated with such a device. Mauze heads off to find Q with the box in tow. Brossu Berkesto responds to Mauze, "Very well, we shall make do with manually halting the Lazarus' drift for now." Next he sends a discreet message to Genesis requesting a report on the situation with the rescued crew. Genesis sends a message back saying the crew is getting patched up, despite some butting of heads, things are fine down here for them. Knowing that the cool headed Genesis can handle a few stressed out humans Brossu sends her a private message asking her to find out where they want dropping off once the Lazarus is safe as they have a schedule to try and keep. Reclining in his chair on the bridge he then returns to checking the AI logs to see how TC is doing while Oda slows the drift of the Lazarus and starts it being pushed so that it will drift closer to the second planet where the Planetary study is being done. TeeCee speaks in broken common "Most repairs" then some druski, then in some Nibiran (oda understands it says power relay commands are reestablished), then back to common "course laid out for delivery of Lazarus crew to the Azreal along with any of the other survivors of the Atropa". With each second passing, TeeCee's speech improves to her normal self "Delivery of consigned load is to be finished at the planet mining Karlandor. ETA of first drop off, 22hrs. ETA of delivery of consigned goods, 26hrs". Genesis calms down the humans with a cool stare, a stern brow, and a fierce presence. Brossu Berkesto congratulates Oda on some fine piloting and requests that he gets them underway to rendezvous with the Azreal. While it might be tiring for the flesh and blood Nibiran he also requests that he maintains as much manual control as possible to grant TC the time to recover she still appears to need. He then sends a comms message to the entire ship informing them of the ETA. Nate grabs a quick shower before heading to his bunk to sleep for a few hours. Time goes along quietly as TRSHCN heads to their destination while the Lazarus drifts towards it destiny. TeeCee slowly improves back to her old efficient state. Nate's shower turns into a long one then slumber claims him. Mauze finds his friend Quin in the kitchen closet that has been converted into a Qu'arian nest. Genesis and her companion,Cyrus, have a few hours of down time as the Lazarus family stays in the medbay with their injured father. Brossu for once gets to relax as nothing explodes, alarms, or otherwise demands his attention. Oda Xasse nudges a slumbering Brossu... "Boss, we have a problem!!" Spluttering awake the Louhos jumps to his feet exclaiming about what could be the problem now! With a great guffaw Oda continues, "We've not been attacked or otherwise put off course for hours, somethings not right!" Brossu Berkesto takes a half-hearted swipe at his friend and grumbles about over-friendly crew making his life a misery. Deep down however he appreciates the humour and even more so the nice quiet time. "Sit rep please, how long till rendezvous with the Azreal?" Upon the utterance of the eta request, a time display appears below Trshcn. Brossu Berkesto takes turns piloting the ship with Oda in order to keep TC free of as much responsibility as possible. The ETA display quietly counts down as the Trshcn sails along. No alarms ringing, no pirates attacking, nothing out of the ordinary takes place on this section of the run. The Lazarus crew has stayed in the medbay while the other survivors have stayed in their designated areas. Nate sits at the computer console in the work shop making sure that there are no mechanical problems with Trashcan. Genesis spends her free time walking around the ship and checking on the survivors of both ships. Cyrus flicks through magazines while he sits at the gunner's seat The ETA display flashes 00:00 while a quiet dinging sound is heard. On the scanners, the ship Azreal is seen holding a stationary position as the comm sounds a hail. "This is the Transport ship Azreal. We are standing by for docking procedures and offloading of rescued crew of the Lazarus along with anyone else that is desiring to transfer over". Brossu Berkesto greets the Azreal. "Well met Azreal, this is trading vessel mule voidjammer TRSHCN125596492. Captain Brossu Berkesto at your disposal. Initiating docking procedures now, please have your liaison meet ours at the airlock. Berkesto out." He motions for Oda to begin the docking and switches to the internal comms. All passengers wishing to disembark should report to the docking bay immediately. First Mate Genesis please attend as liaison with the Azreal. Passenger Jennifer Heltman to the bridge please along with Chef Q if you would be so kind." Nate straps on his sheathed vibroblade and heads over to the airlock to watch the proceedings and protect Genesis if needed. Genesis moves from her room towards the meeting with the Azeeal. Why she is going to be the diplomat is beyond her, but beggars can't be choosers. Docking procedures go without a hitch. The lazarus crew and all the survivors leave Trashcan to board the Azreal. Genesis and Nate get to stand by and watch everything go smoothly. A few moments later the Captain of the Azreal calls over the comm "We are ready to depart anytime you wish to detach". Nate waits for the airlock to close and mumbles under his breath "And good riddance." Genesis nods "Tell me about it." She sends the ok to detatch. Jenny and Q both show up on the bridge as the ok to undock is passed on. Jenny looks around the bridge while Q slides up near the captain chair and in his eerie voice ask "You requested us?" Jenny stands near the display watch the Azreal pull away and head towards Korlandar "Yes. Why did you ask for us to report to you instead of leaving on the Azreal"? Brossu Berkesto steeples his huge fingers before his face and regards the two closely. "Well Jennifer, I'm given to understand that you and Q here became quite close during your time on the Atropa so I thought having him... err... her... err... it?... sorry Q, no offence meant, having Q here would be comforting for you when I tell you that I know who you are, I know who your grandfather is and I know that there is a reward for your safe return which a louhos in my position simply can't refuse. Now I know what you are thinking and no, I am not a monster, I don't want to hold you against your will and I aren't prepared to physically stop you from leaving, any more than I have by letting the Azreal leave without you, but if there is anything you want to tell me that might influence what happens when we finally land on Korlandar then I'm all ears..." despite his words Brossu has engaged the bridge door locking mechanism. He doesn't like secrets aboard his ship and so much has happened recently that he is determined to find out if Jenny is worth the risk of trying to collect the reward on. Jenny turns slowly to face Brossu completely and asks in a very flat tone "Have you told anyone and I mean anyone at all about who I am? If so then we are all dead as soon as word reaches my" spitting the word out " grandfather. He was the one that sabotaged the ship I was on. He put that bounty, or as you say reward, on any information or turning me in to him as insurance". She starts to pace in front of the screen while talking "I purposely kept myself in the public eye so he couldn't make me disappear easily" then stops and looks at the louhos "You see, if I'm dead, he gets everything. If I'm alive and reach majority which I did while on that wreck, I get control of everything which is what my mother wanted. She was the one that was running the our house, not the grandfather. I can't prove it nor could my mother but we believed that my father was killed. We believed that my grandfather, her father in law, orchestrated it or had someone do it". Jenny stops pacing to look at Brossu, yet again, but with a pensive look on her face "Please tell me you did not tell anyone about who I was"? Brossu Berkesto , with his fingers still steepled in front of his face regards the suddenly very serious woman calmly. "The only people who know are on this bridge right now," he nods to Oda, Q and at the primary AI interface, "Two of them I trust with my life, and have done on a regular basis. The other I believe to be a good friend of yours and the reason I wanted him present when I asked you about this." He stands and approaches slowly, in a very unthreatening manner. Standing before Jenny he looks directly into her eyes and states flatly, "I'm a trader, a man of profit. I have dreams of running a corporation and retiring to a private villa on one of the race worlds where I can fritter away my fortune indulging my hobby at the races. To reach that goal I will do anything I have to..." pausing slightly to let those words sink in he adds with a wry grin, "...but having a crew of humans during some very recent tough times has taught me that their entire species isn't as rotten as my peoples history would have me believe. I still struggle with it but if there is good in a person it should be nurtured not snuffed out right? If your grandfather is one of these rotten apples then I suppose, as a louhos of honour, it is my duty to offer your assistance." He drops a heavy but not forceful hand onto the woman's shoulder, "We have a delivery to make in Korlandar first and foremost, I have bills to pay. While we travel maybe you could fill me on your plans to achieve 'your' goals and if they line up with my own then maybe we can help you and in the future you could help us too? Does that sound fair... besides, what better cover for whatever it is you need to do then a trading vessel with cause to go wherever is required at the time?" Nodding towards Oda again he adds, "Your secret is safe for now, as are you. It anyone asks, you have stayed on as Q's sous chef." Jenny glances at Q who is congealed near the captain's chair "He has protected my secret since the wreck and Mauze is his friend so I would trust him also but between you and me, Mauze is touched in the brain pan" and taps the side of her head when saying that. Jenny starts pacing again while biting a finger nail. Her body language speaks volumes about how nervous she. Q quivers and jiggles with the crystal ball inside him but his voice is heard clearly "I have always protected her. It has been my duty for the last 25 yrs when her mother placed the charge on me". Brossu Berkesto nods solemnly. "Very well then, you have until Korlandar to decide on your best course of action. As long as it profits me in the long run I'm prepared to assist however I can and if you decide to go it alone then I won't stop you... nor will I reveal your secret or your whereabouts. As much as it pains me to lose out on such a hefty rewards sometimes the 'right' thing to do is the less profitable thing to do!" Snapping a dirty look at Oda who is sniggering in the pilots chair he adds, "And you can shut up as well, you'd have had a cut of the reward too you know!" Jenny nods while a thoughtful expression shows on her face "I have to think some but I will let you know what I decide. May Q and I leave now?" as she walks towards the door to exit the bridge. Brossu Berkesto disengages the locking mechanism and nods, "Please let me know your plans as soon as possible so that arrangements can be made for whatever course you choose." Turning to Oda he adds, "Get us under way to Korlandar please." The ships fly parallel to each other as they both travel to Korlandar. The traffic control comms TRSHCN125596492 and requests reason for approach which is automatically given by TeeCee, who shakes hands with the traffic control AI virtually, and they are given clearance to touch down on pad A125 at the City spaceport. Brossu Berkesto gives the order to make land and summons Jenny to the bridge for another little chat about her plans from this point forward. Nate goes into the recreation room, increases the gravity to 3Gs and attacks the sparring dummy. At his normal gravity, Nate feels sluggish, almost normal, when he notices Genesis walk by but continues his beating on the dummy. Genesis walks around the ship mildly, thinking about nothing in particular. She glances out of one of the windows that shows space and for a brief few minutes, just stands there and stares as the ship sails through space and a slight curl of a smile creases her lips as the sight of the reentry burn causes the windows to darken enough to not let her be blinded. Standing this close to the outer hull allows her to her the rumbling of the air as the ship plummets down through the atmosphere. It takes a short time but soon the rumbing vibration of the engine fades away, Oda spins away from the display panel with a grin on his beak "We are down and TeeCee is powering down the engines" and moments later after the engine quiets, Jenny and her companion stand at the doorway to the bridge "Permission to enter", waiting for Brossu to respond.