The Silverstar Incident (FT, Open (Read First Post!))

[Sunset]

Roania... And Everyone...

On reflection, it made sense that there would be multiple points where the ship's power systems could be restarted from after it's long sleep. A central facility might be damaged by any number of methods but several reduced the chances that the ship might be irrecoverably disabled by a random event to essentially zero. Nominally, the process was supposed to be orderly, with the lever moved to the first, or stand-by, position. This would be followed by a number of systems checks, maintenance routines, and the like. Then the second position would... Well, they'd never know now, would they?

Instead, everything happened all at once.

From their vantage point on the flying deck that stretched out above the floor-level control center, they were treated to the classic movie sequence: The Light Up. First there was a hum as, deep in the bowels of the ship, long-silent batteries dumped their charge into the ignition sequence for a fusion power plant and within seconds a miniature star was born, blazing away in the depths as contacts drew current from the storm of plasma. Then, one by one, the massive lights built into the high walls of the long corridor in front of them flashed into being.

More lights sprang up, framing the various doorways and alcoves, and then the numerous glass displays flashed into life, filling with everything from scrolling sequences of unknown characters to what were undoubtedly images of the inhabitant's home world. Various panels, displays, and consoles followed this, some making what were possibly re-assuring sounds while others made the sort of noises one might associate with imminent explosion or at least fire. Behind the Dragon, a whirring alerted them that something was happening and, as they turned to watch, the robots in their bay began to move, step forward on their four legs, and move in a strange dance that was either a dance, or some kind of coordinated systems check.

Then the air hit them.

On the ceiling a series of flaps set into chrome-accented recesses opened under the pressure from many hundreds of tons of compressed air that had suddenly been set free from it's confining tanks and sent rushing through long-still ducts to fill the empty areas of the ship. It was a howling cacophony as it rushed into huge hollow spaces, like the cargo bays, and whistled into tiny rooms. It blew through corridors and pooled in alcoves until, nearly ten minutes later, the eerie yell finally stilled.

Moad...

"Sure, we'll patch you into the general chat frequency and... Holy shit!" The Communication's Mate, who'd been sitting at his console with his feet up on the station and idly putting yet another layer of polish on his finger nails as he watched the main display, suddenly and accidentally cut the connection for a few seconds only to re-establish it a moment later.

"Hawk, the ship just lit up like a fucking Christmas tree! Was that you?"

On his side, there was a babble of voices as the mentioned general chat buzzed with people asking who did what and trying to figure out what it all meant. Then the air hit and the channel got even noisier as those with external microphones switched them off in favor of their radio and rode out the storm.

"Not you? Alright, yeah, I'll put you through. General chat and a line to the Captain and the bridge here..."

[Moad]

"We've go atmosphere, Captain."

Ahrugn looked over at the crewman who had spoken. "Well obviously." Although his suit was virtually soundproof Ahrugn could still feel the changing external pressure. "Is that the extent of your analysis?"

The crewman looked abashed. "Oxygen levels are low normal. No known toxins. Trace amounts of helium, but not enough to have a noticeable effect. This atmosphere should be safe for most species."

"Good, but lets keep the suits on internal air supply for a while just to be safe." Only then did Ahrugn remember that he still had an open channel with the Sunset ship and its crew. "Sorry about that. So I'm guessing that you weren't the ones who turned the power on either? Do you know who it was, or could it possibly have been an automatic response to the airlocks opening?"

While Ahrugn spoke Nokota proceeded to examine the newly activated screens. Most contained moving images of an alien world, but those above the food dispensery showed what appeared to be a menu. His eyes widened in his species' equivalent of a smile as he began to scan the symbols from the menu and transmitted them to the Hawk to undergo pattern recognition. It wouldn't give them the alien language, but it might give them something to go off later on.

[Sojourner Ark]

Daring adventurer Chloe Ai stood on the tiptoes of her magnetic boots, playing her camera over an intriguing series of alien pictograms - inconveniently placed above head height for a four-foot-eleven-inches catgirl. The camera mounted on her space suit helmet was recording everything, of course, but different angles would be useful when it was time to become intrepid reporter Chloe Ai again, and sell a juicy video to Interstellar Astrographic. She enjoyed being daring adventurer Chloe Ai - it had a frisson of danger and exploration that bubbly socialite Chloe Ai lacked (even if her socialite persona had become fabulously wealthy through the Diary of a Party Girl video serial and spin-off book, chick flick, and X-rated film series). And it beat the hell out of being perky call girl Chloe Ai or - stars forbid - mild-mannered maintenance mechanic Chloe Ai. So when she'd heard the rumour about the ghost ship headed in-system, she'd leaped at the chance to join the Sunset explorers - coming to the Northgate system had been a dismal flop in terms of career success in any of her fields of expertise, and a first-in scoop on a new alien race would be a fine prize to bring back to Sol. Something she could use to resume being someone worth knowing.

"I wonder if whoever built this had purple blood?" she mused over the radio link. "We put warning labels in red because it's a colour evolution has trained us to noticeeep!" her voice rose abruptly as air rushed into the cargo bay, dislodging her precarious grip on the floor and spinning her through the air. "Ack! Help!"

She landed face-first (well, chest-first, given her extravagant abundance of chest) on a wall, bounced off, and finally managed to grab a nearby crate with a magnetized glove. One hand, two hands, and she swung her feet back down onto the deck. There, safe. Not exactly a catlike landing, but then whoever had done the genetic modifications to make catgirls hadn't mucked with the ordinary human sense of balance.

"I'm all right!" she reported. "Just took me by surprise, is all ... hey, d'you think we have to worry about alien bugs? I suppose they wouldn't be evolved to munch on us ... and my ears are getting itchy in this helmet."

[Wandering Argonians]

Argonian Rogue Trade Vessel 'High Plains Drifter'

While typically a rather lucrative (if not entertaining) occupation, the life of the so-called 'rogue' trader was typically less nefarious than the name implied. It was an archaic title, assigned to prominent citizens of the Argonian Empire who had demonstrated abilities above and beyond normal citizenry, to the point that they were gifted with a sort of ultimate authority and a vessel of their own, then rather unceremoniously shooed out beyond the borders of Argonian space to mix and mingle with whatever else was out there. The goal was to promote trade and colonization on the outer fringes of Argonian territory, but all too often the issuance of this high honor was used to relocate potential 'troublemakers' as far away from the powers that be as possible.

While not criminals (at least, the low-brow sort), these individuals and their rise to prominence promised to upset the established status quo, and those above them issued such privileges to get them out of the way, as the Right of Trade formally exiled the named personage, albeit in an honorable manner. Such had almost been the case with a certain Colonel in the Imperial Argonian Guard's 5th Stormtrooper Regiment, a certain Colonel Keyton Kerrich. Colonel Kerrich was positioned to gain control over an entire area of responsibility, when enemies in high places sought to covertly shuffle him off to an obscure and un-sung end far beyond known space. Unfortunately for them, Kerrich was cunning enough to displace such an 'honor' off on a distant nephew, Petty Officer First Class Atticus Kerrich, an Argonian Imperial Navy provost who was, at that time, in the process of being awarded a medal for bravery during a boarding action some months before. It was a simple matter of changing a few bits of information, a trivial matter for a special operations Colonel to accomplish, and the rights of the rogue trader were bestowed on Atticus Kerrich in lieu of the intended victim.

Ironically, the term 'rogue trader' was never more appropriate than when assigned to now-Captain Atticus Kerrich, commanding officer of the highly-modified trade frigate 'High Plains Drifter'. Kerrich had been known on his own vessel for his relative indiscretion as a provost, crooked in most senses but not quit deserving of the title 'corrupt'. Contraband he confiscated could often be bought back for the right price, or it was 'misplaced' to the next highest bidder. When the vessel he was serving on, the assault frigate 'Mercy Personified', was boarded, Kerrich fought off two boarding torpedoes worth of enemy combatants before friendly forces arrived to assist. Such an event was fortunate for his estranged uncle, who had used this as an excuse to bow out of his own claim to rogue trader-dom.

Now, Atticus presided over a motley collection of mercenaries, star-sailors, and other ancillary personnel. The 'Drifter' was little more than a mobile base for his crew, comprised for former Imperial military members, ex-pirates, tech-adepts, and the like. Primarily making their living off of deep-space salvage and mercenary work, Kerrich never passed up the opportunity to take something that was 'just floating around' and use the relative firepower and expertise of his 'troops' to ensure no one else laid claim to said salvage. It was borderline piracy in most cases, but it kept his men paid and in good spirits, and that was about all he could ask for. He'd never really enjoyed the Navy, aside from the fighting. This was a bit more entertaining, at least most days.

Currently Atticus occupied his command throne on the bridge of his beloved vessel, absently toying with the bolt-pistol holstered on his right thigh in a rough-looking leather holster. The obligatory captains' hat hung from a hook on the throne itself, as some sub-section or clause in his Right of Trade stipulated he must look the part of dashing space captain, which in reality Kerrich only half-attempted. His clothing was reminiscent of a Navy captain, with a coat, pants, and blouse of dark gray trimmed with black. The coat itself was ankle-length, and lightly embroidered around the cuffs and tails. His boots and leather holster had not seen a coat of polish in a short length of time, as they appeared used but at least minimally maintained. The aforementioned hat was a bit ostentatious for his tastes, but went with the get-up he'd selected. Honestly, who was going to enforce the dress code? He was the law out here, at least as far as the Argonian Empire was concerned. No, he played the part because it actually seemed to lend him a degree of credibility with potential clients. His Comms Officer barked something over his shoulder in Kerrich's direction...

"Cap'n, seems we have a transmission from our 'contact' at Port West. Rumors about an ancient colony ship, or some kind of alien invasion vessel, or something. I think he's drunk, honestly, but I've been picking up snippets of similar chatter on the local bands. Might be worth a look..."

Kerrich nodded, then responded in turn...

"Much obliged, Mr. Arrow. Helm, chart us a course for Port West. With luck, we won't miss the party..."

The statement was accompanied with a slight grin, revealing the predatory teeth of his species. With their late arrival, it might not hurt to be prepared. Kerrich got to his feet, boot-soles clanking softly on the deck-plates as he started off down the corridor towards the main cargo bay. In its current empty state, his men had seen fit to use it for a drill hall of sorts; hosting bouts of combat and training in the cavernous space. Kerrich knew he could find most of his major players down there, the ones he'd need for this salvage operation to go off without a hitch.

Passing through the final bulkhead and onto a catwalk above the floor, he was greeted by the sight of several of his mercenaries engaged in various training bouts, but two in particular stood out: His Scout-Master, Selous Vrash and another of Vrash's men named Shalak practicing their fast-paced brand of Marshland tribal knife-fighting; and the sword-bout between his Drill-Master Milo Tackitt and the resident Stromtrooper Kanak Shantz, a contest of Tackitt's exemplary saber technique against Shantz's highly efficient broadsword, standard training for the special operations soldiers His Imperial Majesty's Academy produced from worthy orphan recruits.

Below, Selous Vrash and his old friend Kivo Shalak matched wits and steel in a tight duel with training knives, the mono-edge of their traditional blades a bit too sharp for a mere training bout. The two were well-matched, both from the celebrated 45th Marshlander Scout Regiment (Commando); both men having been brawlers in their youths, and both having faced heavy combat in their tenures among the Marshlander Scouts. Both had fought in the campaign to retake Verdant IV, a jungle-world famed for its predatory eco-system and its hardy inhabitants. Like the Marshlander tribals of Argonia, the inhabitants of Verdant IV were a knife-wielding culture that respected the blade as both a tool and a highly-effective weapon. It had given both former Scouts a new perspective on the art, with new theories and techniques to be explored. While the knives themselves were quite different (Verdantian blades tended to be longer and had heavier pommels to balance them out), techniques transferred into the short-bladed Marshlander methods with a bit of practice.

Flint-sparks flew as Selous aimed a direct strike at Kivo's tattooed neck, parried neatly by his opponent's own blunted blade. He deflected the left-handed punch Kivo threw in retort a half-second after the 'ping!' of deflecting rang in their fin-ears, pushing the fist aside with the wrist of his knife-hand and opening up a shallow cut along his opponent's forearm with the clip-point in a deft maneuver to distract Kivo with the sudden sharp pain.

The gash hardly bled, and did little to distract a seasoned knife-fighter like Kivo Shalak. Getting cut was an accepted outcome in a contest of blades, a foregone conclusion one had to accept when attempting to kill an opponent in this manner. While blunted, the knives they sparred with were certainly capable of killing if employed correctly. Fortunately both men were competent enough to with-hold the killing stroke, or to at least not deliver it with full force. As the tip of the knife left the flesh of his arm, Kivo drove a horizontal cut in towards Selous' exposed neck, which he only just managed to block, but caught a follow-up kick to the chest from Kivo for his trouble. With a grunt, the Scout-Master staggered backwards a step. Though just a training bout, their kind trained as they expected to fight. That was to say, all strikes of the non-edged variety were delivered with more or less full force, and Selous had felt the kick through the light flak-armor vest he was wearing.

Kivo smiled, bearing his teeth in a playful display of aggression, and Selous returned the gesture as he advanced with a series of angled cuts aimed at striking Kivo in the neck, effectively ending the bout. All three strokes were deflected handily, but allowed Selous a chance to catch the distracted Kivo across his reptilian jaw with a left cross, before dropping down into a low-level rotating kick that knocked the legs out from under him. Suddenly floored, Kivo caught a glimpse of Captain Kerrich watching them from above just as Selous dove in on him to finish the fight. It was a simple matter to catch the momentarily-airborne Selous by both hands and drive his feet into his chest, allowing Kivo to neatly kick Selous over his head and send him sprawling into a low crouch. Kivo simply pointed upwards as he rose into a guard position, and Selous immediately recognized what it was about.

He and Kerrich exchanged a terse series of hand-signals relating to whether or not they should interrupt the sword-fight between the other two. Elsewhere in the bay, the other exercising troops had abandoned their various close-quarter drills once they'd noticed the captain staking along the catwalk, and had simply moved towards the always-entertaining sword-fight between the gentleman duelist and the special-ops trooper. Both Selous and Kivo joined the others, mingling with a group of similarly-tattooed former soldiers. Marshland tribals denoted village of birth, status, and military rank with a series of intricate tattoos covering their arms and torsos, and at later ranks their necks and faces as well.

The saber-wielding warrior with impeccable technique was quite the opposite from the tattooed former scouts, although his still had his share of scar tissue he didn't wear them with the pride his fellows did. No, Milo Tackitt was first and foremost a gentleman, cultured and refined in every aspect but drunken debauchery and mingling with females outside of his own species. A pair of deft parries with the gently-humming power-saber in his right hand deflected a pair of well-aimed and powerful strokes from his larger opponent. Kanak Shantz was a thickly-muscled specimen, built and trained for raw killing potential no matter the circumstances. A peerless combatant, easily the equal of most of the others in nearly every area of the combative arts. His biggest weakness was his complete social ineptitude, which Tackitt relentlessly (although always in good humor) mocked him for. Kanak noted to himself that the verbal barbs tended to be sharpest during his duels with his well-spoken friend...

"Well-struck, old boy. Tell me, how goes your courting of that pretty deck-hand?"

Kanak simply snarled in response, driving a precise stab with his own humming power-sword that Milo batted aside and followed with a stepping thrust of his own towards his exposed chest that Kanak had to twist his powerful frame around to avoid. Like the scouts' knives, their power-blades were training versions, although quite dangerous they wouldn't shear through anything like the energy-encased mono-edge versions they mimicked...

"Oh that's right... You never speak to her, much less make eye contact..."

A flurry of hacks and slashes was Milo's only received reply, a series of blows that nearly tore his basket-hilted saber from his grasp by virtue of sheer ferocity alone. Kanak's augmentic left forearm certainly didn't make him any less powerful, either. The former Stormtrooper had lost the limb during a largely-classified operation he seldom discussed, and its replacement was a gunmetal clone of the remaining right arm, albeit wreathed in engraving that matched the tattoo pattern Kanak had running down that particular arm. In his case, they were only for decoration, showcasing the regimental crest of his former unit, along with suitably militant and aggressive accents. The bout continued for five more terse minutes before Captain Kerrich made his way down from the catwalk to stand off to the side...

"Alright, alright, that's enough! I don't have all day to watch you two beat the piss out of one another with pointy objects..."

Milo Tackitt deftly bowed to his larger opponent before sheathing his blade with a dashing flourish and producing an ornate pipe he immediately lit with a nod. Kanak Shantz simply lowered his own blade, pointing at Milo in a silent attempt to convey that next time, the gentleman wouldn't be so lucky, although the 'threat' was conveyed with a genuine smile...

"We are currently steaming towards a supposedly-derelict colony vessel in hopes of securing some of it for salvage, but as most of you are aware these things are rarely simple. I want three boarding parties geared up for close combat, in the event someone else beats us to the punch and gets on board before we do. Selous..."

The captain redirected his gaze to the Scout Master, who also doubled as the unofficial First Mate of the 'High Plains Drifter'...

"You will be leading the initial boarding party, along with Maddox, Shalak, Klix, and Teebo..."

The last name drew a groan from Shalak. Teebo was the resident Tech-Adept, and 'weird' didn't begin to describe the mostly-mechanical devotee of the machine cult...

"Reinforcements will follow as needed, with Big Shantz leading the relief effort should we need it. Tackitt will head the final quick-reaction party, although I doubt we will need that many men. Additional parties will be delegated as needed, but that's an 'if' as far as likelyhood goes. The rest of you I want alert and ready to repel boarders should any rivals want to get overly-friendly and invite themselves over..."

He cast a final glance around the collected troopers, around fifty-five in all, rather small by most mercenary group standards, but plenty big enough for a vessel this size. They had enough room to spread out and not cram the billets to capacity, which was likely twice the capacity (Kerrich had never run at full strength, he could never afford that much muscle) they currently utilized...

"You all have your assignments, so fall out and kit up. I expect to see my boarding party leaders on the bridge within the hour, with the exception of Selous. Dismissed..."

There was a shouting chorus of 'aye' and 'hooray' as the assembled troops broke off into individual squads to prepare for their larger boarding party assignments, and Selous broke off with Kivo Shalak to find the remainder of their party...

"You think this is gonna end like last time?"

Shalak referenced a previous salvage operation that had inadvertently released a horde of exotic and rather deadly predatory creatures some galactic moron had decided to attempt to sell to wealthy collectors before being eaten by his vicious wares...

"Sure as Sithis hope not. Cap'n ought to know better by now, but this is the crap he pays us for..."

Shalak shrugged in response as the two walked down the corridor towards the billets where they might locate the rest of their team. About this time, the 'High Plains Drifter' exited warp-space and began a slow, controlled drift towards the hulking colony vessel and its attendant fleet of scavenger vessels...

[Senkaku]

HMS Kunlun Shan
Interstellar Space




The Kunlun Shan was that rare example of a competently led ship that had been built in the last fifty years within the vast, disintegrating expanse of star systems known as the Empire of the Great Qian, or simply as Qiang. She was equipped with an elderly FTL drive taken off a Khayan pirate craft, as her original had been falling apart faster than the empire she served. The Kunlun Shan had started life as a very large solar junk, a first-rate. She still retained a few of her junk-rigged solar sails, but now she was fitted with a fusion lightbulb drive and a pair of reciprocating tokamaks. Her original weaponry, which had consisted of a few missile pods and PD lasers, had largely been stripped, and she now carried several modern xurí cannon and a complement of automated missile drones.

The ship's commander, Yuan Lin, was also one of the very, very few competent captains in the Qian Navy. He and his officers, while they were not geniuses, could run their ship effectively, and could actually fight instead of fleeing at the first sign of battle.

Which was why they were off in the middle of deep space, far outside Imperial territory, chasing the Outer System warlord Kojianha from system to uninhabited, unclaimed system as he and the last of his defeated retainers tried to flee Imperial justice- which did, for scum like him, exist every now and then.


Yuan Lin had been sitting on the bridge, drinking a si'yu caffeine-stim cocktail, while he obsessively watched the displays for a report from one of their Neumann radioscope probes. He had decided that there was really no point in sleeping, since they'd been having trouble with their artificial gravity and Kojianha had an irritating habit of lobbing things behind him in a futile but irritating attempt to knock out the Kunlun Shan. The small Oog wore a typical dark blue Navy tunic, which went down to nearly his five knees, and carried a small sidearm based on the ancient weapon known as the taser, though this one operated at much higher voltages and used an arc of plasma, rather than a pair of wires.

A large, red blip suddenly appeared on most of the screens, and an alarm softly went off, then another. Several officers whistled, and one came over as the bridge suddenly began to stir from the stupor in which it had rested for the last two days, as the Kunlun Shan had circled this small rogue comet, waiting for her radioscope probes to report in.
"Captain? This just lit up-"
"I see it, Lieutenant, thank you."
Lin rubbed his eyes and stared. I don't think Kojianha threw that.
"Sir, there are also a number of other ships around it that were just illuminated by all that light."
"Thank you, Lieutenant, we'll deal with them later. Let's move out of that... Thing... 's way, just as a precaution. I think we'd best investigate it. Helmsman, can you match us with that ship?"
The helmsman, a young Oog named Ren Chao, shook his head. "For a few hours, maybe. But with a pair of reciprocating tokamaks? That might be enough power under normal circumstances, but not now. They fire up too slowly, and we're too low on fuel. Since we'd have to accelerate, then brake and turn, we'd slow down to about half its speed, and I'd have to launch a harpoon and stick us to the ship's surface."
"Well, we'll do that then."
Lieutenant Xiao looked at him, concerned. "Sir, shouldn't we be chasing Kojianha?"
"We still haven't gotten any radioscope feedback from our probes. This will take a few days at most to get us parallel and attached and investigate a bit. And with something of that-" he pointed at the main display -"size, I think it's worth investigating. Kojianha isn't going to go far."
"Yessir."


The Kunlun Shan's attitude jets flared a bit, and then suddenly her fusion lightbulb engine ignited, sending a spear of hydrogen plasma and radiation out for a thousand klicks behind her. The Qian ship was now on a direct intercept course with the huge subliminal alien ship, arching in a long, unhurried parabola to the point where she would swing around to match the ship's pace.

[Sunset]

Moad... Argonians, Senkaku...

"Hold on, Hawk," the Comms Mate replied, "Let me confirm with the away group..."

While the Comms Mate tried to get any information out of the loose assortment of personnel that could be scarcely called a 'group' except by virtue of their proximity to each other and their separation from the Olivia Marie, the Sensor Mate had picked up the next pair of incoming ships and called the Chief Mate over to his station.

"We've got two more incoming," he threw their returns up on his own displays. "The first one was easy enough - the computer picked it up as an Argonian vessel - and I'm running the registry now. Second ship... I have no fucking clue. It looks positively antique."

Chief Tiraw looked it over. The grey-bearded spacer had been around long enough to see the last of those breed of ships, far out on the frontier where they made due with what they had, and while it made him feel a bit old to be seeing one in action again there was just a bit of nostalgia in his eye as well. It wasn't his primary concern though. He knew just enough about Argonians to be wary of them. They had crossed paths with Sunset before, though never swords at least to his knowledge.

"Comms?"

There wasn't an immediate reply from that station and he looked over to where the Mate was still listening to the babble over the General channel. Some people thought they might have triggered it, others were not so sure. Most seemed to just be trying to figure out if they should meet up with everyone else or not and looking to Captain Culling for some kind of guidance.

"Comms?"

Finally the Mate looked over, "Chief?"

"Two incoming ships, same message if you have a minute."

"This is SS Olivia Marie, Civilian Craft flying the Sunset flag. We are rendering assistance to a disabled vessel, unknown name and registry. Exercise caution, status of disabled vessel is unknown. Repeat, status of disabled vessel is unknown."

"Sent."

He was about to return to deciphering the conversation in his other ear when the Chief caught his attention again, "And another message."

He didn't like the look of the Argonian ship. Calling it a trade vessel was like calling a Cetagandan Merchantman a merchant ship. Most everyone else would call it a pocket dreadnought, except of course the Cetagandans. This was confirmed only a moment later when the registry kicked back an identification on it.

"High Plains Drifter, Argonian registry, trade frigate out of..." The Sensor Mate went on to read off what information there was in the registry, but the Chief Mate was keeping it in the back of his head for the moment.

"Put a message through to Port West," Tiraw instructed, "Keep station administration appraised of our situation. Ships, registries, coordinates, everything you can."

"Sir, Captain Culling seemed to want to keep this close to our vest..." the Comms Mate looked over at him, less objection in his voice than confirmation.

"She's away, and the vultures are circling. We don't know if the beast is even dead yet, and in fact it's looking more alive by the moment. Put the message though, and prepare another. Relay to SDF SEC, appraise them of our situation and request advise. We'll try to keep the dream alive, but I want back-up on the way in case someone gets the itch."

It was looking like more of a mess every minute, and exactly why he'd wanted to call in the SEC in the first place. The ship had power, or at least lights, though whether this meant it was 'disabled' was another question and as much a legal one as a technical one. If it was on some kind of automated timer, it would need to get much closer before it could brake and move into orbit. If it wasn't, then that would indicate that it was not derelict and thus under someone's command. It would be their ship, making any boarders potential trespassers. But to ascertain if it was under someone's command, clearly they would need to stay aboard and make contact with that someone.

[Moad]

Ahrugn struggled to make sense of the disjointed chatter on his comm. From what he could make out the crew of Olivia Marie didn't know much more about the situation than he did.

"We've got two more ships incoming." Nokato's voice came over the comm. "I can't identify them. I'll check with the Olivia Marie."

"Good. Keep me posted." Ahrugn turned to his crew. "Well there's no point in sitting around in the lobby. 'Onward into the unknown.'"

Ahrugn lead the way across the room to the hitherto unexamined inner door. It opened easily at the pull of a lever, smaller than those at the airlock and easier to move. One of the crew wondered aloud about the logic behind the lever opening system on internal doors to which Nokota pointed out that they had never actually seen the builders of the ship or what their hands might look like.

The door opened into a corridor decorated like the rest of the ship. "Right or left?" Ahrugn asked. Somehow the exact same number of crew voted for each leaving the decision to their captain. Left was probably more sensible. It would take them to the crews of the other ships and they could work together. On the other hand right was more exciting. To the right was a complete unknown. "Right it is then." They still had the comms to stay in contact with the other crews.

"Nokato can you run a density scan of the ship and send us a map?"

"Not the whole thing. Its massive. I would need to detach from the ship and take multiple scans from different locations to get a full map."

"What about just the hundred meters or so around us?"

"That I can do." Ahrugn felt a slight tingle as waves from the density scanner ran over him. "I'll have a map for you in a couple of minutes."

[Senkaku]

HMS Kunlun Shan



The Kunlun Shan's attitude jets flared almost constantly as she reached the apex of her slow curve and began turning back, matching the huge alien ship. Her solar sails fluttered as they were buffeted by gas and plasma, and they tilted slightly as the ship tacked into a nearby star's trailing plasma stream, glancing light from the stars and the massive ship in bright flares.

"Captain, we're in position."
"Right then. Accelerate to full, we want as much time as possible for this little maneuver."
"Yessir."

The ship's tokamaks strained and rumbled, her fusion lightbulb engine glowing like a small star within the bowels of the enginery that drove the old ship. A trail of white-hot hydrogen whipped out behind the Qian ship like a streamer as she huffed and puffed in her futile attempt to stay ahead of the alien ship, matching her course with computer-guided precision.

Lin frowned at his personal console. "This is your plan to deploy the harpoon, Helmsman Rem?"
"Yessir."
"I thought you meant we had a gravity harpoon. Not... This."
"Sorry, sir. I assumed you knew we didn't have any. We used our last one on Kojianha's tanker, two weeks ago."
"So we're doing... This."
"It's what we've got, sir."
Lin sighed. "Repurposing a bomb-pumped laser cannon to launch an improvised spun-diamond and fullerene harpoon with a few magnets stuck to the end. That's the best you could do?"
"Besides landing us on the ship's surface, yes."
"And if we'd landed we would've gotten squished, yes." The captain sighed. "I suppose I should inform this... Sunset ship, then."
Lieutenant Xiao looked over. "Sir, do we know anything about the Sunsetti? I can't find anything in our database."
"Most of it's hearsay I picked up near Qien Liah. A Khayan I met there said they were a bunch of capitalist libertines who had an unfortunate tendency towards the aggressive preservation of everything that gets in the way of progress."
"Spoken like a true Khayan."
"Yes. I would expect they're reasonable, if somewhat libertarian, and that they probably won a little border spat with our Singakhera friends. But who knows, eh? I'll contact them, anyways."
Lin flicked on an audio link, transmitting to the Olivia Marie.

This is the HMS Kunlun Shan, Qian Navy Vessel Designation Alpha Red 116. Message received. We will exercise due caution. Your vessel possesses better intelligence on status of unidentified vessel- we are in place for boarding maneuver. Is this recommended based on unidentified ship's status? Over.

The captain frowned. Radio was low-maintenance, but using it for ship to ship communication made him feel like a caveman.

"Helmsman, hold off on firing until we get a response back from them."
"Relax, sir. We've got an hour or two before the other ship is even in position. A maintenance bot is still making final modifications to the cannon."
"Anyone up for another hand of hearts?"
"I'll deal, since it's on autopilot."
"Lieutenant Xiao, you can make a third. Who'll be our fourth?"
"Midshipman Zhi! You can be our fourth."
"One moment, sir. I'm just finishing the scan on the other ships."
"Fine. You could let the aeais do it."
Zhi sighed. "Sir, I really should pay attention to this."
"I suppose you should. Carry on, Midshipman. Captain?"
"I'll have an aeai play as our fourth," Lin grumbled, tapping at his console. A small hologram popped up, and distributed each of them holographic cards.
"That's a nifty trick," Xiao grinned.
Lin looked equally surprised. "I didn't know it could do that. Who has the deuce?"
Ye tossed a hologram into the air. "That would be me." The card soared through the air, then split up and reappeared in front of the other three.
"Very cool, captain."
Lin chuckled. "I haven't used it as a hologram before. Only single-player. Are we breaking hearts on the first trick?"
Xiao shrugged. "Chao, up to you."
Before Ren Chao could respond, Midshipman Zhi broke in. "Captain, several of those ships are armed, one may be of Terran origin."
"Terran?"
"I believe that Admiral Zhang directed a brief expedition against them or something along those lines."
"Well, this could be awkward. See if you can pull something off Fleetnet."
"Download speeds are going to be pretty low out here, sir."
"Well, then we'll have time to finish a hand, won't we?"
Ye broke in. "I'm fine with hearts on the first trick."
Lin sighed. "We should probably take a break, if that ship poses any sort of credible threat. Aeai, pause."
The holograms blinked out, and the captain smiled slightly. "C'mon, back to work, you two. Zhi, tell me anything you can pull off Fleetnet once it finishes downloading, yes?"
"Yessir."

The Kunlun Shan, her computer banks alternately pondering cards and her trajectory, sped away from the alien ship that grew and grew and grew behind her.

[Sunset]

Sojourner Ark and Moad...

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," a short little figure in a gray space suit decorated with day-glo blue stripes along the arms and sleeves said, half over her radio and half not. She was only a couple meters away and had landed there after someone else had picked her up and bodily thrown her across the bay. Then the air had rushed in and sent the dwarf spacer bouncing around until she'd ended up right up against the same wall as Chloe Ai. "There's chatter that they've picked up some kind of bacteria over in another section. Doubt anyone's looking for that kind of thing in here, but I wouldn't risk it."

Pushing herself up, she introduced herself quickly as Ferana before clicking her boots back onto the decking and positively racing towards the door on the far side of the cargo bay. Something appeared to be happening down there, and as soon as she'd reached it, she stopped and watched. Most of the other boarders had moved into the space beyond already, and while some had been blown back into the bay by the expanding air mass, most of them were still ahead of her.

"Look down there!" She pointed towards the open area at the end of the corridor. There was a broad raised deck over what looked like a busy control center, complete with flashing lights and lit up displays as well as eager adventurers poking over the various displays. "Looks like they've got things up and running."

"Wasn't us," a random figure said, "We didn't touch anything."

"That you know of. Could be a timer set off from the external airlock, could be a motion sensor..."

The figure shrugged and moved on. It, along with a couple others, were opening one of the side doors that seemed to lead into yet more cargo space.

"Hey! Look at those!" Someone said loudly over the radio chatter. There was a lot of 'those' to look at however, and so most people were surprised when a dozen figures that were distinctly not from their party came down the ramp and began to fan out in various directions. Two began to click their way down the hallway towards Ferana and the catgirl.

That it was a robot was obvious. Smoothly mechanical ball and socket joints held together a mechanical construct that looked like a four-legged spider-centaur. The four legs were joined to a central abdomen, and this held a torso that was topped with a pair of thin arms and a wide, almost T shaped head with a pair of obvious sensor-eyes tucked under the arms of the T. It was advancing deliberately, though not in a rush, and it moved precisely up to one of the small alcoves that stood next to a cargo door.

It's passage made the purpose of the odd flooring clear. Each foot was tipped with a rounded spike that would, on a hard floor, lead to many slippery situations, but on the malleable surface it dug in just enough to keep it from slipping and allow the robot to easily push away.

Moving precisely, it stopped right in front of the console and then settled down on it's legs, sinking down until it's torso was nearly touching the floor. Quickly and expertly, it undid a catch on the lower section and opened up a small access panel. A unit slid out and the robot began to remove several boards and modules, replacing some of these from extras that had been included on a small shelf.

"Looks like they're making repairs," Ferana noted as she watched.

After a moment it stopped, rose, and moved over to one of the cargo doors while leaving the access panel open.

"Wonder where it's going..."

That was answered a moment later as it moved into alignment with a lit panel next to the door and extended an arm to press one of the raised letters. The door began to slide up, the clear hum of an electric motor indicating that it was powered and working properly.

[Sunset]

OOC Catch-Up For Everyone!

Just in case I missed something, and for those just joining:

Current Status of the Ship/Derelict:
Power has been restored throughout the ship (The Roanians did it) and all consoles and displays are active.

All lights are on. The interior of the ship is now fully lit, and the exterior has numerous lights but is not fully illuminated. Navigation lights, essentially.

All of the Interior doors are now powered and can be operated by the panel next to the door. The Exterior airlocks are not (at least those discovered thus far) and can only be operated mechanically.

The ship has a breathable atmosphere now (Earth comfortable) again, thanks to the Roanians. The only exceptions are the airlocks along the outside edge of the ship (or any other undiscovered airlocks).

The ship is still moving, though not accelerating.

There are no radio signals or otherwise coming from the ship.

The only sign of the inhabitants are numerous maintenance robots that have been stationed around the ship. These are now moving to repair and restore various systems that were damaged in the start-up or degraded over time.

The ship's interior, thus far, seems to consist mostly of cargo bays. These are linked by a corridor that runs around the outside of the ship from control center to control center, with approximately 1 kilometer between each control center.

Moad's density scan shows that there is another, smaller corridor that sits on top of the cargo corridor and is linked to various yet-unexplored rooms, as well as to the lower corridor by a series of now-powered lifts built into the corridors next to the large outside cargo bay.

As previously, there is no artificial gravity aboard the ship.

[Sojourner Ark]

"I guess you're right," Chloe replied, resigning herself to itchy ears, which were doubtless to be preferred to being devoured by alien microbes. "Oh, look! Hello!" She bounced over to the robots. "We come in peace for all mankind! And womankind. And other-gender-not-specified-here-kind. The peace is the important part. Hello? Oh, I guess it's not sapient ..." Chloe frowned as the robot turned and walked away. She'd wanted to make first contact! Although given the way she'd babbled, perhaps it was a good thing she hadn't.

"So that symbol must be a button to open the door! Good to know." Keeping her camera focused on the robot, Chloe set off in pursuit. Hopefully it was going somewhere interesting ...

[The Fedral Union]

Simon was startled, who wouldn't be? He quickly looked up and then around him, kaneal saying at his side uttering not a single phrase. Simon glanced at her before the air had hit him, indeed it felt as if a monsoon had been unleashed, he instinctively raised his arms to shield himself, yet as he was still in his suit this was a futile thing. As everything died down Simon again looked around him trying to maintain visual contact with the crew of the ship he had booked passage on. He was still a bit awed by it all, and slightly suspicious; this seemed to have transpired out of no place. Was it due to their presence or a trip of some sort of mechanism, what ever the case was it made him uneasy but also extremely curious. Kaneal was the first to sum up the whole event to him, she exclaimed as they turned to make their way down the hall behind the party.

“What the hell happened? I told you this was a bad omen..”

Simon looked to her with a slight glare, she and him both knew omens were just myths he was slightly crossed about the implied joke yet paid it little mind. He responded glancing toward his multi-too wrist again checking their readings three times over by the end of Kaneals, his eyes and his tools readings.

“Look, what ever is going on couldn't have been random, this ship was dead when we got here. What or whom ever caused this I don't know it could been us tripping something for all we know. There’s no sense in calling out the obvious dangers..”

He shook his head, the read outs confirmed that life support or at least part of it had been restored. Yet the continued lack of gravity was rather obvious, he mulled over weather he should or shouldn't take off his helmet. For there might in his thoughts be a sudden loss of all this power, he waited to see what would happen and what his friends would do. Until then he continued to study anything of interest that he came across in great detail. Kaneal assisted canvasing the other side of any halls or rooms they might have wandered in to, he and Kaneal spotted and detected signs of activity quite quickly. They both stared at these odd robots seemingly moving about toward various locations and junctions and access ports.

“Shit.. What ever the hell is going on, we're in the thick of it.”

Stated Simon, neither him nor his drone Kaneal seemed to be noticed by these bots. Simon let out a sigh, as one rolled right passed him, he looked up to his drone friend and gave a slight forced smile to her saying.

“You have no completion here eh.. Only dumb bots.-

Getting a look at one of their tools he slightly winced and amended what he was saying.


“I still wouldn't want to get sliced up.. Lets keep moving no sense staying here.”

Kaneal glared at him wondering what that comment was supposed to mean, of course she wasn't dome. She was far more powerful than most other non Terran AI's or at least she thought. But then what was an AI with no arrogance, pride... A soulless machine. Yet Kaneal might come in handy or may not, the reputations Terrans had for being inventive weren't myths at least not partially.


“Well you know, I'm the one who's smart enough to know we might be in deep... Or at least I warned of it.”

Simon chuckled trying to melt away his apprehension and fear as they both walked and respectively floated toward one of the door ways. Simon raised his hand and tapped his nimble gloved digits over the panel, now that power had been restored it wasn't that far off to assume doors were still opened. Yet as he did so he could feel his heart strain with that fear of the unknown taking in to account everything else around them. Why was this ship not powered in the first place? It made little sense for a ship like this, filled and stocked to the brim with supplies and cargo and armies of maintenance bots to be adrift, and not at its destination. That bugged him, but so many other theories swam around his head always nibbling at his logic and his emotions.

The door opened, it seemed as if time had slowed for a bit, but that was just his perception. He looked beyond that doorway scanners and eye augments taking in a large amount of data. So far nothing had come out to hurt them, nothing to imprison them at least not obviously. And still no biological life forms, it still bugged him. He walked through the doorway eyes panning the room he had opened.

“I hope we're not rats in some ones little maze, or game...”

He muttered aloud, Kaneal looked at simon wanting to furrow a brow obviously she could not. She didn't want to fathom being at the mercy of anyone or anything other than her own will. She replied as she floated along side his flank.

“You pick a fine time to joke Simon..”

Kaneal chalked it up to either a twisted sense of humor, that sense he was known for at times or the stress. But she paid no mind to it having any seriousness, who would trap a bunch of scavengers or pirates or scientists. That was ludicrous in her mind, there are far more logical and valuable targets to attract.

“...You know the track record in this galaxy.”

Simon again curled his lips in to a forced grin, Kaneal merely nodded and kept quiet as they both went forth to investigate the corners of the chamber every object and bit of material poured over by the sensors they had. Simon stepped in front of a small key pad under a display, he wondered if he could get some information from it. Of course any information it would give might be limited but something at least would help.

But the symbols this race had used were completely foreign to him, there was no telling what he would type just by pressing random buttons. Yet he wondered something, the symbols on the crates and on the door controls and so forth had all been a certain color. Perhaps he thought, that he could discern the different meanings of keys or symbols bu the accent of their colors.


He didn't know if it would tell him anything, frankly he didn't know what colors meant what. But he could always try, he was hesitant to even consider the idea. Yet he compiled theories about what he was seeing, he knew this kind of work took a team of his kin and AI's to boot to even get partials. Otherwise he'd be here for years, but what else could he do?

[Sunset]

Everyone...

"Cap'n," One of the various crew members, a muscular young human male with a neatly trimmed mohawk and goatee dyed a brilliant blue, waved Culling over to the largest console in the control center. It sat in front of an enormous glass-embed display that stretched from the top of the console up into the open space between the flying bridge overhead and could easily been seen, though not in detail, from the other end of the corridor.

"Cap'n," he manipulated a track ball set into the console and a titanic grid slid by on the display, "I think we're wastin' our time down here. I can't read what it says, but all of these spaces," he pointed up, "Look big and orderly, like cargo bays. If we want to see the interesting stuff, I think we need to go up or down." He pressed one of the buttons that was laid out around the trackball and the grid changed to show a diagram that was similar in it's dimensions, but much more closely packed with hundreds of smaller rooms and corridors.

"This is what's above us. Way above us. Or," he hit a different button, further around the circumference of the trackball, and another grid appeared. This one showed a vast hole in the middle, indicating it was around the outside of the concave backside of the ship. The areas depicted were decidedly mixed, with both medium sized areas that could have been cargo areas, numerous smaller rooms, and a single very large room that took up as much room as the rest of them combined and completely circled the interior of the layout.

"What is that?" Culling asked, pointing the space out. "It sure looks big. Some kind of hangar bay?"

That might mean spacecraft, which would be interesting. But the blue-haired technician shook his head, "No, there's no airlocks or anything on the diagram. I think it's just a big storage bay. I'm going to go up to the top levels, myself. I think that's where the crew from Moad is, and they seem to be better equipped for this than us."

"That sounds like a good idea," Culling nodded. Neither knew that the crew from Moad was moving away from them, but what's a little Scooby-Doo? "I'll try to round everyone up and send them up. Err, how?"

"Those lifts," Dawkins (At least, that's what it read on his name plate) pointed down the corridor to the recessed sections next to the door that led back into the first cargo area. "They'll take us up, I think. They seem to link all the areas down to here, and up to the top. But not that bottom section."

"Cool." Susanne toggled her radio over to the general chat channel, "Hey guys? Guys! We're going to go upstairs. It looks like there's some kind of living quarters, or something up there. Meet by the lifts near the first cargo bay in five minutes, okay?"

There was a babble of answering voices and she started replying to those she could while she walked the short distance to the lift. One of the robots was standing there and she absently said hello as she stepped up before realizing it was a robot.

Senkaku...

'This is the HMS Kunlun Shan, Qian Navy Vessel Designation Alpha Red 116. Message received. We will exercise due caution. Your vessel possesses better intelligence on status of unidentified vessel- we are in place for boarding maneuver. Is this recommended based on unidentified ship's status? Over.'

"Not much better," Chief Mate Wariv grumbled. "But don't tell them that."

"What do you want me to tell them?" The Comms Mate asked.

"Advise caution, let them know that the lights are on and that there's an atmosphere. Sensors... As soon as they are down, let the Captain know where they're at. We've never met these people in person, so we don't need any surprises."

"Sure Chief..."

HMS Kunlun Shan, SS Olivia Marie. Advise caution when boarding. Power to vessel has been restored, atmosphere in place. Multiple rescue crews aboard, communications unreliable.

Moad...

To the right was a short corridor, mirrored on the left, that led to what looked like a small group of offices on one side and an open shaft on the other, set back and behind what looked like a pair of sliding glass doors. There was also a console in an alcove, a door that led into a maintenance room for the lift shaft, and what looked, for all the world, like a trio of vending machines. They were not empty, but the foil-wrapped food product they contained didn't look particularly appetizing either.

The offices were just that; A desk, a saddle-like chair, another pair across from it, and a console with a display. They were particularly sterile with no windows or decorations, just plain white walls in the glossy white enamel.

There was either the lift - without gravity it would be possible to just float or walk down - or the door and corridor behind the central station. That would, at least from the general direction, lead straight towards the center of the ship. If the conversation over the general channel was correct, the Sunset crew was moving up to the same level they were on.

[Roania]

The first thing the Roanians did was panic, and fire their weapons at the nearest robot. It satisfactorily reduced the robot to a slowly cooling puddle of melted metal, and made them feel temporarily better. This ended when more robots arrived to investigate the fate of the destroyed one. The Roanians hurriedly evacuated the room, the Dragon contacting the Courser to tell them to keep track of them and prepare for a violent extraction if necessary.

The panicked flight stopped when they reached what the more quick-witted Roanians recognized as some sort of control chamber, complete with a map of the ship. While they caught their breath, they examined the map and planned their next moves...

[Senkaku]

HMS Kunlun Shan




"Harpoon loaded, captain."
The Kunlun Shan, her fuel tanks almost completely dry, coasted along as the huge alien ship- some of the crew had begun calling it the Silver Star, for some reason that they thought immensely relevant that Lin could not fathom- grew and grew beside her. The two ships were nearly even in pace, neck and neck, both coasting gently through the good night.
But the Kunlun Shan was, slowly, ever so slowly, falling behind. Her already-low fuel reserves had been depleted further by her rapid acceleration and turning maneuver, and she'd scarcely had the fuel to match the Silver Star's snailesque pace.
"Very well, helmsman. Is the target designated?"
"Yessir. Well clear of the exterior airlocks, well above the central axis, to miss any explorers, as per your orders."
Lin nodded curtly. "Fire when ready."
"Yessir."
Lieutenant Xiao, watching as the two ships drew towards the firing point, spun in his chair. "Maybe there's some fusion fuel aboard that ship."
"I would expect, with a craft of its size," Lin responded evenly. "But it might not be compatible."
"The fuel on a ship like that might let us catch Kojianha, sir."
Captain Yuan was silenced by that. "We'll have to talk about it later, once we've got a party on board."
Chao glanced over from the helm, flicking on the intercom for a moment. "All hands brace for impact- my bot had to take out a few shock absorbers."
The captain's eyes widened. "Take out a xurí's sh-"
The Kunlun Shan lurched slightly to the side as a nuclear weapon detonated in the bowels of her weapons systems. The cannon it detonated within, lacking several shock absorbers, created a rather large recoil, slamming the ship's armor hard enough to dent it very slightly. The impact knocked it off course, hurling unsecured things and several unsecured people across hallways or, in one case, the bridge.
The ship turned away from the alien craft, began drawing off on a new course...

The spun-diamond and fullerene line of the harpoon lanced away, glowing in the heat of of the nuclear fires that had launched it. Several miles of carefully sculpted carbon shot away from the Qian ship, a glowing thread of Heaven's silk spinning out to join two very odd silkworms.
The diamond nose bit into the ship's surface with incredible force, creating a powerful shock that would likely echo as a massive boom throughout the entire craft. A spray of liquified metal and vaporized diamond went up around the impact point as the magnets tossed the damaged material out of the crater and into the void. The entire ship was nudged slightly by the force of the harpoon's impact, in fact, bumped ever so slightly off course.

The Kunlun Shan, like a fish on a line, jerked back. Once again, unsecured objects were knocked about with great force within her. The ship spun back towards her quarry, threatening to swing into her like a pendulum and obliterate herself against the Silver Star's massive forward shield.
Her attitude jets fired furiously, and, in normal circumstances, they should have worked. But the Qian harpoon had penetrated deep into the alien craft, and continued to drag the Kunlun Shan behind her.
Lin, on the bridge, laughed slightly as his officers swore loudly. He called out to the helmsman. "Chao, did you fit it with anything so we can stop it?"
"No sir! We're gonna have to wait till the whole fucking line runs out."
The ship jerked again, and then began slowing as her attitude jets flared again. Finally, she sat still, her harpoon protruding from the ship at a sharp angle forward.
"I think it's run out. Hopefully we didn't skewer anyone."
"We might have suffocated them. That's a lot of atmosphere and debris blooming out of there already."
"We'll send a sorry note and a few thousand taels if anyone actually did die. Notify the Olivia Marie that we just accidentally penetrated the ship's outer layer and they may want to put some space suits on."

This is the Kunlun Shan. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience. We have punctured unidentified ship's outer layer in harpoon maneuver. Due to fuel shortages there was no other option. May wish to notify your exploration party of danger. Once again, sincere apologies for inconvenience.

[Weyr]

When the vents whooshed open, Alice had reflexively clipped herself to handy pipe -- fast bit of thinking that had kept her from getting accelerated across fifty-odd meters: a likely-painful experience despite the bouncy deck. She floated now a few meters off the overhead, at the edge of a short length of tether; when she blinked, bright spots swam across the backs of her eyelids, but she could at least more or less see. A few strategic tugs brought her floating back to the overhead, and she detached her wrench from the slightly-bent pipe and clipped it back onto her belt and stowed the attached lanyard in its little pocket on her hip.

The power was on, but not the gravity; she was not sure why, and she kicked off towards the deck, having decided that it would be better to get to the deck before someone flipped another switch and forcibly reacquainted her face with Sir Isaac Newton's inexorable laws. Judging by the chatter translation scrolling in a corner down her helmet's faceplate, either the power had been turned on by accident, or by someone not part of their group. Hopefully the accidents and unlooked-for occurrences would continue to be pleasant.

Alice scanned the radio chatter-log. Captain Culling was gathering a group to explore the upstairs levels; Alice doubted she would be of much use there, but it might be interesting to poke around anyway. And apparently . . . she had to read that line three times to make sure she had not gone completely loop. Then she turned to the radio band linking her with Olivia Marie's bridge.

"Olivia Marie, Katsuko here. Not going to ask why we've been harpooned. But please advise where we've been harpooned relative to the airlock through which we boarded. Captain Culling has enough backup; I'd like to check out the damage and make sure Misters Ahab and Naphi over there don't vent us all by accident."

[New Septentrion]

"External pressure gauge is going crazy," Williamson yelled over the radio. "Looks like the outside is starting to pressurize. Air coming from a tank somewhere else on the ship." The others noticed it soon enough as the coming air nearly swept their boots off the metal surface. Lights began flashing on, too, as did numerous electronics across the expansive bay.

Commander Heisenberg quickly pressed another button to lower an additional shade over his eyes. "Well, can we breathe it?"

"It's about 80% nitrogen, 15% oxygen or so, and 90-some kilopascals. We could do fine without the helmets. Just be careful."

Everyone but the commander was more interested in the "be careful"; Heisenberg was happy to take his off with a small hiss as the pressures equalized slightly. "Yep, he's not making it up."

"We'll see how much you like it after an hour or so" Dr. Stormoen chided. "Lu? Are you seeing this? The whole thing is turning on."

"It's very flashy. Not sure how I couldn't see it."

The scientist turned her attention to a newly-activated computer monitor, with more shapes in a variety of colors scrolling across it. "I think purple indicates that something is important, but other than that I don't have enough information to piece together meanings. She pressed a button on the terminal. "Maybe it's reckless, but I don't think these stations are secure enough to control anything dangerous."

One of the dormant robots activated and stood up, and stormed off to join the others doing repairs. "Well, that one has something to do with robots, or maybe repairs. I should keep a better log of these."

"I've got your log right here," the communications officer responded.

"Right, but what about something I can reference freely?"

[Wandering Argonians]

High Plains Drifter, Bridge

Mr. Arrow once again rotated towards his commanding officer, although that was a loosely-used term in the context of a rogue trade vessel. He'd received warnings that the ship was being ident-scanned a few moments ago, but he wished the scanners the best of luck. Rouge trade vessels didn't have ports of origin, as they weren't technically allowed to berth in Argonian space.

Still, there was an incoming message for the CO, and Kerrich needed to hear it...

"Message for you, Cap'n..."

"This is SS Olivia Marie, Civilian Craft flying the Sunset flag. We are rendering assistance to a disabled vessel, unknown name and registry. Exercise caution, status of disabled vessel is unknown. Repeat, status of disabled vessel is unknown."

Kerrich, once again seated in his command-throne's well-worn imprint of his hindquarters, might have raised an eyebrow, had his species seen fit to evolve them several million years ago. About all he could manage was a quizzical look as one of his eyes narrowed...

"Civilian, eh? Excellent. It's nice when such matters are the affairs of gentlemen and not pissing contests of flotillas. Patch me through, Mr. Arrow. It's time we found out exactly what manner of sleeping leviathan we're frakking with..."

Arrow nodded as he turned back to his station and made his captain's request a reality, allowing Kerrich to respond via a live feed. The Argonian captain was of average height for his species, well-built as most of his kind were. He presented himself as a gentleman privateer, at least when possible, and enjoyed playing up the 'rogue' element of his position. Still, the overall gist of his message was friendly, though obviously he expected some manner of salvage or prize from this endeavor...

"Olivia Marie, this is Captain Atticus Kerrich of the Argonian Rouge Trade Vessel High Plains Drifter. We appreciate the intelligence update regarding the drifting vessel. Do you have any idea as to how many parties are involved presently? We're sending our own boarding party momentarily, though I do enjoy knowing exactly what sort of party I'm sending my men into. We're happy to assist in whatever way we can, provided sufficient compensation is, well, provided..."

He ended the quip with as much of a smile as he could muster, given his predatory snout and carnivorous teeth. He did manage to force some mirth into his blue, reptilian eyes. Mr. Arrow forwarded an intelligence update to Selous Vrash as the first of the boarding teams got situated on the drop-shuttle that would be transporting them to the derelict vessel...

High Plains Drifter, Shuttle Bay...

Selous was never fond of aircraft, or space-craft, or any sort of craft that transported him high above terra firma. It was, however, an unfortunate fact of life in the Imperial military and in the so-called 'private sector' he currently scratched out a living in. His four-man team had assembled in the shuttle a moment ago, two former scouts, a former combat engineer, and a current tech-adept of the machine cult. It was an odd bunch, but not the worst he could have drawn. Kerrich had a few of the notoriously-arrogant Defiant Riflemen (Those formerly of a regiment on planet Defiance) on the payroll, and they had never mingled well with Scout Regiment troops, at least as far as Selous had seen.

He, Shalak, and Klix (Shalak's former second-in-command at the squad level in his old regiment) had kitted up in standard Scout fashion, disdaining ancillary gear and the shoulder pauldrons of the issued vest in favor of additional ammunition and increased mobility. Each carried the traditional knife at the small of the back, along with a sidearm of some sort. Both Selous and Klix preferred the las-pistol, as well as the placement of said sidearm on the thigh. Shalak had chosen a slug-thrower, for whatever reason. Scouts typically weren't issued weapons aside from the standard las-carbine, but were notorious for equipment theft to supply their own ranks, as such there was nothing remotely close to 'standard' issue aside from the armor vest and the las-carbine.

All three Scouts wore their old vests, still emblazoned with faded rank chevrons and the crossed knives insignia of a Commando-rated Scout regiment. Each had customized his vest per his own preferences, spare power cells, luminator packs, chem-lights, medical supplies, and the like festooning their armor but not in an excessive fashion. All three wore the no-nonsense general-purpose camouflage fatigue pants and olive-drab armor of their prior regiment, Shalak disdaining a t-shirt under his armor and properly displaying his impressive tribal tattoos. The three sported similar inking, with Klix being a bit less ornamented around the neck region, his final rank having been that of 'Corporal' and not earning the neck-pattern reserved for 'Sergeant' rank. Their individual weapons, while identical models, were as unique as the men who carried them. Selous had stripped the heat-shield from his weapon in favor of lighter weight, for example, where Klix had added an optic of higher magnification and welded the adjustable stock at a set length.

The odd man out, at least in the conventional sense, was former Corporal Krag Maddox. The brawny industrial-world native was a former combat engineer, a specialist in demolitions and accessing everything from fortified buildings to star-ship hulls and anything in between. He'd also removed bulky shoulder armor from his vest, a faded grey twin of the olive-drab types the Scouts were issued, and lugged a bullpup-configuration shotgun commonly issued to Naval troops for ship-board combat. Spare shells loaded with the standard mono-filament wire and ball-bearing combo rode in speed-feed tubes rigged around the middle of his torso armor, next to a pioneer hatchet and a bulky slug-thrower sidearm he'd apparently taken as a trophy. On his back he carried a pack laden with thermal-based melta shaped-charges designed to cut through armor plating, along with a selection of grenades that were smaller and could be 'persuaded' into fulfilling the same role with less collateral damage.

The demo specialist was a bit shorter than his Scout cousins, but wider in the chest. A smoldering stump of a cheap cigar hung from the left side of his mouth, slowly filling the passenger compartment of the shuttle with a haze of fragrant smoke. While no Scout, or tribal for that matter, Maddox had some visible ink that displayed his regiment of origin half-hidden by the sleeve of the t-shirt under his flak-armor vest. A blood type identifier was scrawled across the left side of his thick neck in military stencil, while the last four digits of his identification number were in a mirrored location on his right.

The final member of the boarding team was Janus Teebo, Tech-Adept and generally-ignored technology specialist under Kerrich's command. On day-to-day operations, he supervised the deck-hands, mechanics, and maintenance personnel that kept the small collection of terrestrial vehicles, shuttles, heavy weapons, and star-ship systems at peak performance. Today, he was being brought along for his sheer technological knowledge base. There wasn't much visible outside his baggy, hooded gunmetal-gray robe. The robe itself was stained along the hem with various lubricants, dirt, and fluids vital to mechanical operation. The hands grasping his knees from the sleeves of the robe were obviously mechanical augmentic replacements for his natural hands (likely his entire arms), but were flawlessly executed clones of his originals. These, however, were the color of burnished silver, and concealed a variety of tools. Teebo carried no weapon, simply a small data-slate tucked into a hidden pocket of his robe. His breathing was punctuated by a sharp snap-hiss noise, a sign that his arms weren't the only things he'd replaced with augmentic upgrades. A single red-tinted visual processor glowed within the left side of his hood, and he chuckled softly as he watched the others begin to fit re-breathers to their scaly snouts...

"What's so damn funny, gear-head?"

Maddox was one of Teebo's habitual tormentors, and the two often bickered about Maddox's apparent abuse of the technological bounty his explosive charges represented, at least to Teebo...

"Augmentic oxygen processors provide a freedom from such needs, Krag Maddox. I can survive without oxygen for a period of days, if need be, although at a reduced capacity..."

The demo specialist snorted in disgust, exhaling a ring of smoke in the tech-adept's face a second later before returning to his seat after a glance from Selous, and strapped himself in. Teebo didn't seem to notice, or simply didn't care. A moment later, after a brief status update from Selous' own data-slate, the shuttle was out of the bay and into the cold void of space, hurtling towards the derelict vessel at top speed...

[Moad]

"So shall we press on?" asked Nokota. "Others will explore the lower levels. Let us move further in."

"If the crew of the Olivia Marie are coming it might be courteous to wait for them."

"Let's move further in slowly then. They'll catch up and we don't have to just sit here."

"Alright," Ahrugn conceded. "Just let me radio them to tell them where we're going."

Once the Olivia Marie had been notified Ahrugn lead the way toward the central part of the ship. He took a bioscanner from one of his crew and kept one eye on it as he walked. Normally Ahrugn trusted his crew with his life, but right now he felt uncomfortable if he couldn't hold the scanner himself. The ship was simply too empty. Too sterile. It was clearly designed to be occupied. One way or another at least some of those occupants must still be here.

[Sojourner Ark]

The robot Chloe was following was not, unfortunately, going anywhere interesting; it was plodding along with stolid disinterest in the goings-on around it, occasionally stopping to replace bits and bobs in machines along the walls. It didn't seem to be doing any repairs, so much as replacements; removing one part and slotting in a new one. Chloe observed that everything seemed designed to slot together - no welding or even soldering required, just parts clicking together with other parts like jigsaw pieces. That would certainly make things more easy to maintain ... at least until the stockpile of spare parts ran out. Probably there was a factory somewhere in the ship, with equally diligent robots stamping out replacement bits.

This was not exactly thrilling documentary footage, so Chloe was happy to rejoin the rest of the Sunset party and head up (forward?) into more photogenic levels of the ship. She was skilled in zero gravity, at least - she'd been on the local Z-ball team in her teens - and it was easy enough to build up speed and drift back the way she'd came. The trick, of course, was not to go too fast and risk building up the sort of momentum that would be injurious. The yielding alien floor was rather harder than the walls of the Z-ball court.

Halfway back to the cargo bay, there was a terrible sound - midway between the screech of crumpling metal and a tremendous bwonggg as if she were inside the world's biggest bell - and everything seemed to creak and jump. Hull breach, she thought, with some panic. It's a good thing I left my helmet on. At once, alien pictograms on nearby displays began to flash an angry purple, and all the robots turned in unison and hurried off into the depths of the ship. Chloe was perfectly happy to be going the other way.

Chatter over the radio from the Olivia Marie's bridge crew said they'd been harpooned by some other ship. Harpooned! Of all the irresponsible, idiotic things to do! She turned off her own radio and spent half a minute inventively cursing the sort of people who would harpoon another vessel in deep space, as if it were a whale. That sort of careless madness could have gotten them all killed - what if the impact had caused (or worse, was causing) the derelict to break apart? I don't think I like all our fellow explorers.

Still, they assembled - a little later than expected - by the elevators, and everyone was accounted for. The atmospheric pressure seemed to be stable, so presumably the derelict's now-active computers had sealed off the breached area. They filed up the elevator shaft - no need to use the elevator itself, in zero-gee - and were soon on the next floor of the ship, further up. It didn't immediately seem much different, with the same spongy floor and sterile white walls, but instead of a large cargo bay they'd emerged into a kind of lobby, with corridors branching off. It reminded Chloe of a hospital waiting room, or of the lobby of a minimalist hotel; everything was very clean and un-lived-in. If there were living crew on board, they plainly hadn't been here recently.

[Sunset]

Roania...

'Bwonggg'

The sound rung through the whole of the ship and, after only a moment, all of the remaining maintenance robots rose and ceased whatever they were doing. Several of the large displays in the control center, including the one that had held the grid layout they'd been examining, changed to show a view of the entire ship as a glowing purple 3D schematic overlaid against a white background crossed with blue lines. One section of the schematic glowed especially brightly, and while there was no indication of what had caused the sound or whether the ship had in fact sustained damage, a large number of 'T' shaped symbols were rushing in that direction.

It was no hard guess that these were the maintenance robots on the move.

----
Senkaku...

'This is the Kunlun Shan. Our sincere apologies for the inconvenience. We have punctured unidentified ship's outer layer in harpoon maneuver. Due to fuel shortages there was no other option. May wish to notify your exploration party of danger. Once again, sincere apologies for inconvenience.'

"Harpoon?"

"What do they mean, 'no other option?'" Chief Wariv yelled. "There's a whole bloody fleet of ships here that could have..."

This was precisely why he was sticking to message-based communications rather than visual links. It kept him from screaming at people who did things like harpoon a ship in order to dock.

"Alright," he sighed, running a hand down his face until he could tug on his beard for a moment. Then he turned and walked over to the Sensor station where the Mate was already pulling up the affected area. "Where's the harpoon, and what's the damage?"

"Overall? It's not much. We're looking at a ship with a mean diameter of eleven kilometers, give or take," The giant ship was shaped something like a giant flying disc, or frisbee, though it's design was asymmetrical. "Rough surface area of ninety five square kilometers. It's very nearly a pin-prick. But I don't know what kind of damage it did. It hit along the outer edge, and chatter says that's mostly cargo, but who knows? They did aim for an area away from the other ships..."

"Small favors. Comms, send them a reply. Confirm that we see them, advise to proceed with caution. Then send another message to Port West and advise them that we might need a tug out here. And another to the SEC. If they threw that thing off course, we might need more than just an Explorer."

"Aye, Chief..."

HMS Kunlun Shan, this is SS Olivia Marie. We hear you, and are advising those aboard ship. Advise to proceed with caution. Please forward fuel requirements, rescue vessel may be dispatched.

"Call down to the tugs," the transport carried a few small tugs for moving large free-floating cargo around in situations that required high precision. "Have them put together a crew and go survey the damage on-site. See if it's something we can patch."

----
Weyr...

"Katsuko, this is Comms, checked on that now..." After a moment the Comms officer, who sounded a little harried, came back on the line. "Harpoon is at 223 degrees south bearing of your position. That's about 9 kilometers away. I don't know if you want to walk all that far. We're calling Port West and having a tug dispatched for the errant whaler, and we're dispatching one of our own shuttles to take a closer look at the outside."

----
Wandering Argonians...

"Right now? There's four that we know of," Wariv supplied. "I don't know if I'd expect any compensation. If my guess is correct, we're looking at a colony ship or sleeper ship. Whatever 'money' they might have is going to be worthless to us. If there's even anyone alive to pay up. If there isn't, and it's declared derelict, then..."

He considered the question for a moment. It would technically be Susanne's call, assuming it would even end up as 'her' ship. A derelict was owned by whoever stepped foot on her first and was able to execute a salvage operation. He didn't doubt they could, but then again, having more people around to help wouldn't hurt either.

"Captain's Shares. Usual split - Captain's divide fifty to cover costs, crew divides fifty between them on a per-man basis. All I can offer you is a spit agreement for the moment."

A 'spit agreement' was simply that; A spit and a handshake.

----
Moad...

Ahrugn's thoughts proved prescient as the door slid up to let them into the next portion of the ship. While the next chamber itself wasn't occupied - merely a long hallway with doors at both end and a set of inset doorways along each wall that led into smaller rooms - the scanner lit up immediately and the reason was clear.

Down at the far end of the hallway, some fifty meters in length, it spread out into a larger space with another of the ubiquitous display panels dividing it in two. Beyond was the door into the next area, but on either side of the door were a pair of large windows that shows the rooms beyond. Something was moving in there, and as they moved closer they got their first glimpse as a four-legged shape, clearly organic in nature, moved past.

It looked very much like the lower half of the maintenance robots. Four thin legs joined a sloping torso that ended in a fleshy mantle or pair of ridges that rose from the creature's back. There was a mouse, sitting below the front pair of legs, and the whole thing sat much lower on the ground than the robots. Each was about the same size - roughly three-quarters of a meter at the top of the fleshy ridges, and a quick survey didn't not any eyes or other sensory organs though there might have been something hiding in the mantle.

Closer still and it was clear the two windows on either sides looked into separate rooms on either side of a central aisle way. They held long rows of what could only be hibernation pods, enameled pods with a clear window on the top half. Many of these still contained one of the odd creatures, though some were not moving while others banged frantically against the window. Some had broken out and it was these that were now wandering the two side rooms. There had to be hundreds of pods, but so far only a dozen or so had escaped.

[Senkaku]

HMS Kunlun Shan



"In retrospect, I should have suggested you use a missile."
"I did actually think of that, sir. But we'd have had to attach the line to the missile, and remove the explosives, and put a diamond bit on the end, and build a spool... I ran a computer model. It wouldn't have been done in time."
"Well, hopefully we didn't asphyxiate anyone. I would have thought a ship like this would have thicker skin, but apparently not."
Lieutenant Xiao stood up. "Sir, shall I get our boarding party together?"
"Yes, go do that, Xiao. Send down a maintenance bot to try and stitch that hole back together, too."
Chao looked over. "I already did. It'll arrive in a few seconds."
"Perfect. Xiao, your party should be good in space suits, since you can use the harpoon line to go back and forth and I am somewhat leery of trying to land a shuttle on that thing."
"Yessir." The lieutenant stepped through the sliding doors and off the bridge, and Lin looked at the main displays.
"I am quite interested in seeing what's down there."
Chao nodded. "My maintenance bot just landed, it's stitching the metal back together as we speak."
"Can you have it build an airlock for Xiao?"
The helmsman's fingers danced over his keyboard as he spoke. "Shouldn't... be a problem! Done." He smiled slightly. "It'll build him a... Oh dear." Chao looked back down at the screen.
"What?"
"There are.. Ooh. Okay, good. There are robots from inside the ship, and they're helping. Sort of. They keep smoothing out the airlock our bot is trying to make. I'll have it take them-"
"No! Don't disable them. Send Xiao a text, he'll burn his way in with a plasma torch. I don't want to risk irritating anything coming out of that ship too much. Have they bothered our robot?"
"Besides smoothing out the airlock? No."
"Good. They'll be below Level Ones, then." Lin flicked the intercom on. "Lieutenant Xiao, Lieutenant Xiao, this is the bridge. Change of plans. You'll be burning your way in with a plasma torch, and once you're in, you are to focus on finding any compatible fusion fuel that we can take aboard. Copy?"
A green light blinked on the captain's console a moment later as Xiao pressed a button on his Navy-issue comms bracelet.


Several minutes later, half a dozen small, rectangular boxlike objects with several appendages sticking out of their sides were ejected from the Kunlun Shan's personnel airlock. Oogish spacesuits generally did not have arms or legs, as, in space, the short, rather awkward arms and legs nature had granted the Oogish race became little more than small, blunt instruments because they were swathed in protective layers.
Each one fired a few bursts of gas, and then began moving towards the glittering harpoon line. As they reached it, the small, robotic manipulator arms extended, and began pulling them down. It took only a few minutes for them to reach the ship's surface and the hole that the harpoon had stabbed through it. The edge of the hole was teeming with robots, most of them the maintenance bots from the Silver Star, but one was an elderly Qian model that was doing its best to help. The boxlike spacesuits maneuvered past them with bursts of thruster gas, and then disappeared into the ship.
Transmissions were racing between the suits and the ship.
"Captain, this is Xiao. We didn't need the plasma torch to get in, but the whole thing is swarming with robots."
"Affirmative, Xiao. The robots didn't bother you?"
"No, sir. They're focused on their job, which is repairing the big hole we left."
"Alright. The ship doesn't appear to have artificial gravity, so go ahead and explore. Try and stay together, though."
"Thanks for being soooo specific, Cap."
"Shut up and go find us some fuel."
The line went dead. Xiao fired a few bursts of gas and turned to look at his fellow explorers. He had two marines, Midshipman Zhi, and two other sailors he didn't know. Xiao's short-range radio crackled to life in all their ears.
"Right, then. We're looking for fuel, and fuel is probably going to be near engines, and engines will be on a central axis, probably near the stern. So we've got a bit of a hike."
With that, he turned around again, and six weird boxlike spacesuits fired up their maneuvering thrusters and began drifting down the hallways, using a low-intensity x-ray laser from the Kunlun Shan to plot their position in the huge alien ship.

[Weyr]

"Thanks, Olivia Marie," Alice replied. "Confirm bearing two-two-three degrees south, distance nine klicks." She fiddled with a keypad on her wrist as she walked between the towering stacks of purple-marked cargo crates, all nice and illuminated by the big floodlights far overhead. Most everyone seemed to have gone with Captain Culling, judging by the odd silence of the cargo bay that was punctuated only by the low humm of the vents and the odd creak and clang of long-dormant machinery and ducting starting up.

The destination's coordinatess flashed up on the side of her faceplate's display, overlaid on an annotated schematic of the alien ship. Her target was about two hours' walk, in a straight line, and the route would not be straight unless she could find a high-powered atomizer. She had information on only a small part of it, but Journey's mapping daemon had extrapolated some of the ship's interior from what little they knew -- mostly cargo bays on this 'level,' linked by corridors to control centers; elevator shafts led to sleeper chambers somewhere 'above.' That data, and anything else Journey's systems could come up with, was offered to Olivia Marie as a matter of course.

A soft clattering sound disturbed her thoughts, and she turned to spot a purple robot scuttle along past her. The way that thing moved gave her the creeps -- like and yet unlike anything she had seen. Sort of like bad computer animation, rendered in metal and plastic, the movements off just enough to feel wrong.

"Wonder if I can make that robot go faster," Alice mused to herself, off the radio -- one learned early to keep comms clear in the fleet. "Probably just fry the logic, without a manual. Or maybe," she had found what she had been looking for -- a flatbed cargo cart. "Bit of a hike. So maybe I'll borrow a cart."

A short while thereafter, a cargo cart zoomed out of the cargo bay, past the elevator bank, and onwards in the direction of the space-whalers, as Alice had begun calling them for lack of a better sobriquet. Alice had no idea what most of the symbols on the cart's control panel actually meant, although her translation software had helpfully labled some of them based on her experiments in the cargo bay. But form followed function, and it was not difficult to figure out how to make the cart move where and how she wanted it, although Alice doubted she would ever get completely used to the saddle seat. Just in case, she had put a few canisters of fuel into the cargo tray, just in case she had to refuel on the way.

[If anyone would like to hop onto the cart as it passes by, please feel free.]

[Senkaku]

Aboard the Silver Star


Xiao yawned as a small green light blinked in his visor. It had been around ten minutes of drifting down long corridors, exploring a bit until the Kunlun Shan finished her scanning. She was basically giving a dental x-ray to the largest tooth in the universe.
While this happened, Xiao pondered how much he detested spacesuits, though he was thankful that he at least had a little bit of room in this one, as it was sized for someone bigger. Qian spacesuits were more like singleships, with a tiny compartment for the pilot to lie down or stand in, and completely roboticized appendages.
He glanced at the green light, smiled, and flicked his shortwave radio on. "Alright, people. Atmosphere looks friendly enough. If you like, you can open up."
As he spoke, he heard the characteristic hiss of suits depressurizing, and watched as seams and joints suddenly expanded, and suits popped apart. Most people just took off the front part or the area around their head, leaving their visors in place, as the Oogish form was spectacularly unsuited to zero gravity operations. The suits were now little more than thruster packages with smart displays, their protective membranes folded up around their machinery and various systems. Xiao thought of them as flying chairs, which was also a good analogy. He spun his around to look at his party, deftly using his attitude jets to stabilize.
"Right then. Captain Lin should be done with his- oh. Speak of the devil." A message blinked on the lieutenant's visor. "Here are the maps now." Xiao blinked rapidly, forwarding them to the rest of his party. "They're probably incomplete, so these are just for the surrounding area. I'd say Corridor 16AL2 looks promising, if we're looking for fuel."
He spun his suit again, and fired a burst, then went gliding down the hall. The others followed suit, somewhat less deftly. Midshipman Zhi, in particular, looked rather nauseous, as she was quite unused to zero-gravity environments. Even Qian war junks usually had artificial gravity, centrifugal or otherwise, and she'd never been in free fall like this before.
She did not like it at all, and tried to focus on keeping her course straight so she wouldn't hit a wall. They came to the intersection, and the mapping djinn appeared on her visor, indicating she should turn left as the others were doing.

Several minutes later, the Qian party was making its way down another corridor. Zhi had lost her lunch, had it cleaned up by a robot, and was feeling better without any food in her stomach.
She almost hurled again as, for a reason she could not fathom, she was suddenly hurled forward and bounced off a wall, and then flung around a corner. Out of her peripheral vision, she could see Lieutenant Xiao also flying through the air, but he seemed to have stabilized and was yelling quite angrily in a mix of normal Qiha and Sui, a dialect from the south.

Xiao saw the cart come around the corner, but it was too late to warn anyone about it. It clipped Zhi and sent her flying, then knocked one of the marines into the wall with sufficient force to crush a fuel canister in his suit and send him careening wildly across the room until he ejected the canister. Xiao fired his own thrusters straight up to avoid the cart and barely missed hitting his head on the ceiling, and spun back towards the cart as it disappeared and screamed a few curses at it.
Xiao hadn't seen Alice on it, so he merely flew after Zhi to recover the disoriented midshipman, muttering about fucking idiotic robots.

[Moad]

Several of the crew drew their EPDs at the sight of the strange creature. "Hold!" Nokota shouted grabbing the arm of the nearest crewman.

"Put down your weapons," Ahrugn ordered. He knew that the drawing of arms had been a sign of surprise rather than aggression. His hand had gone to his own EPD as well although he had not drawn. "These creatures are sentient beings. They were smart enough to build this ship, they should be smart enough to realize we mean no harm if we don't provoke them."

Ahrugn checked the bioscanner again. The little palm size device could identify over 100 million forms of life, but when confronted with something not in its database its effectiveness was greatly reduced. It could identify some broad characteristics of the creatures, although Ahrugn didn't really need it to tell him that they were not plants. Beyond that there was very little the crew's technology could tell them.

"Olivia Marie you may want to get your team up here fast. This ship is full of life and it seems to be waking up. They haven't noticed us yet, but it is only a matter of time." Ahrugn quickly reported what he was seeing. It was at that moment that he realized he was seriously in over his head. He wasn't sure what he had been expecting, but what he had found was a brand new species and could not possibly know whether or not they were friendly.