RP: LSDF Akahar [Interlude] - Are you there?

Mars watched the fights and smiled. "You know I got an idea. We should make an arena and have ourself a nice evening of fighting. Sound like you could handle crowd pretty well. I could be a referee or something like. In any way people could let some steam off, it could be fun and you could have your happy bets." Mars shared an idea with the geshrin.

Just as quickly as she felt the ground leave her, Merril realized that she was back on the ground; minus her breath, and plus a few stars.

A quick twitch of her muscles and grinding teeth added up to a solid grip and a single thought: Bitch is tough, I'll give her that!

Merril's legs hooked around eachother. As determined as her opponent was, there was no way she'd get up after one little powerbomb.

"Little" powerbomb. Against an eight foot tall Fyuunen.

Rae couldn’t believe it. That impact would have shaken off many of the Fyunnen she had grown with, and maybe a few of her instructors. But here little Merril was, clutching onto her with all the force she had before, and Rae was really starting to feel it. The corners of her vision blurred 'Just...one... more' her mind cried out to her, and gritting her teeth with all the energy she had left to her, she started to heft Merril up once again, slower, significantly less dramatic this time then the prior one.

She got the smaller woman up to her chest, just a little more.. It was at that point that Rae realized she didn’t have a little more to give. If she would have been healthy she would have cursed , but as it was her body went limp as she passed out falling down from nearly her full height. The two of them hit the ground together with a lot less impact this time, but no lack of combined weight hitting the unforgiving ground.

Merril hit the ground with an ungainly "THUD" grunting in pain. She might have been small, but she was all muscle under those fatigues.

"I mighta cracked something. I think I'm gonna just. . . sit here for a while," she croaked after a minute, staring at the ceiling as her hand felt about Rae'lynn's neck and checked her pulse. A relieved sigh led into her saying, "She's still alive. Somebody might wanna take her to medbay just in case."

Help was on its way to restock the ship. Could be a day, could be three. It could even be three hours. He (Keib) stood up from his desk and shook himself to bring feeling back to his legs. He bent down to press a button on his intercom, the one to Aiesu's room specifically. "Aiesu, you busy? I have a line of inquiry for further support: LazCon."

It would only be a few minutes before knuckles quietly rapped on the door. The door slid open quietly. Keib wasn't behind his desk, rather he was sitting down on the couch against the wall in his uniform and coat. He gave the construct a nod of acknowledgement. His room was fairly well lit and upon his desk were folders, papers and notebooks scattered across in a pattern only he could fathom, handwriting hasty with a distinct jilt to it.

Aiesu squinted, staring at the hand-writing as her eyes moved from book to book. She tried reading the hand-writing. And then OCR. Optical character recognition. A miracle of technology that could even surrender the secrets of upside down cursive that had been through the gut of a person. Hundreds of thousands of Lazarus machines trying to disseminate the meaning of those words billions of miles away.

And all for naught. A doctor's hand-writing, Keib's especially, could make even the greatest cryptologist feel inept.

"So," she began, wondering how he accomplished this awe inspiring feat.

Keib could hear that she was tired and shuffled over on the couch to offer her room to sit down. "I've sent a report out to HQ with everything that's happened, and we're going to get support. I have three queries. You might want to sit down."

"I see," Aiesu said, pulling up a seat. Settling down, she was no longer looking at anything in particular - instead scratching at the burns along her arm.

"Do you have any idea as to Hakahn's whereabouts prior to or during the pirate attack yesterday?" Shortly after the debriefing yesterday and the impromptu janitor duty, he decided to get forensic on Hakahn's quarters and office, sweeping it for information, for clues, for trails, anything that would hint at his defection. The others hadn't seen him, and Aiesu was the last person on the list to interview.

He leaned in towards open space, before righting himself and giving Aiesu room to breathe. His sleeves were rolled up and his hands intertwined.

There was an awkward pause.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. No. He was in his room. Bottled up. Angry."

It was only a few days ago that Hakahn was venting to Keib about the hypocrisies and malaise of the Lorath castes, saying he felt restricted. Being a male in the Matriarchy was bad enough, but being a Fyuunen male was to be born in a shadow to a race of proud and strong women. "I think I know why," he replied after giving his superior's words some deeper thought. "He's was always a frustrated thing."

As he looked down at the floor, he noticed Aiesu was barefoot. He watched her step bounce and her toes wriggle underneath when she was wearing those Nepleslian made shoes of hers and wondered where they went.

Her eyes dropped, following his gaze, then returning to his eyes, taking his gaze with her's.

"Where are your shoes, Aiesu?" he asked, tone shifting from analysing Hakahn to inspecting Aiesu.

"Probably my room," she watched. "Why?"

"You always keep them clean. I saw something on them when I met you in your quarters, jam-tin grenade and all."

"They're vintage. They have to be wrapped up and kept at the right temperature or the fabric weakens."

"They're obviously very valuable to you, but I need a closer look, Aiesu." He was good at spotting differences, and given how Aiesu treated those shoes, he figured she'd have cleaned it as soon as she could. "I promise to keep the fabric intact. I used to have a pair myself before they disintegrated."

"The rubber is mostly burnt," she said, recalling the power-stack. "I can still save the fabric, though"

"That's all I'll need. Second query." He looked over to certain components of the room which had once worn out and were replaced by parts manufactured by Lazarus. Keib's volumetric screens were made by the company, his personal computer was built prior to the Quasiperiodic breakthrough but still a damn fine machine, and his perpetual candy fabricator's antimatter battery was replaced by a Lazarus battery.

"What can Lazarus provide for the Akahar, since it has an interest in the mission? As I said before, I've sent a report and request for help to HQ, and it isn't too late to make a secondary request." Mostly, the request was looking for ship restocking and repair, as well as bartering salvage from the pirate ship for credit and luxuries. Aiesu would've seen it go by, unlike the encrypted report.

"What do you need?" she said. "Getting things out here might take a while but if you can deliver, we can deliver" she stated flatly.

"What can you offer is my question, Aiesu." He leaned to his side and grabbed a datapad from a couchside table and opened a blank space on it to start writing. "Your catalogue is large, and so too are the ship's needs." He simply didn't know where to begin.

"Anything," she said calmly. "Legal or illegal, doesn't matter."

"Any recommendations?"

"I'm an doctor, not a tactician," she grumbled like a child caught with her hand in the cookie-jar, taking pause.

"But I am an engineer..." She could feel the deck through her feet, the faint vibrations of the ships systems -- and the computer core of the ship trickling like whispers. Akahar was showing her age, but in spite of it she was a hard nut to crack.

"The ship is hurting. Supplies would need to be the first order of business; we should repair and re-arm as quickly as we can. Second, time is a factor. Our window to act in this matter is rapidly closing so we need to act fast. Third, we're going to need to extend our reach both in terms of what we can see and what we can grasp: Running head-first into this problem would be our undoing."

"I can't agree more. The basics to get the holes patched will be footed by the Matriarchy, but the fun stuff is where you come in," Keib said as he started to look through the Lazarus catalogue, swiping the datapad's screen to go from page to page as the construct streamed it in, examining his shopping habits and watching his expressions carefully. "Ooh, this looks good..."

Keib and Aiesu heard a thump from somewhere in the ship, and they both paused for a moment. Aiesu focussed for a moment and rolled her eyes when she realised what the cause was while Keib shrugged and continued browsing the catalogue, seeing that there was no problem.

-

It was a draw.

Gough and Yar'mak were watching the two combatants on the floor, one of which had probably broken something thereby ending her ability to fight for now, the other was simply too tired to continue.

Al'ris was surprised that such a small thing was so full of sound and fury (signifying nothing) and yet so full of hurtiness to make that sound and fury (signifying nothing) signify something. She looked around both ways and then grabbed the punching bag that the whole debate started over, unhooked it and carried it with her back to her seat, and kept it close now.

It was hers after all. The thump that went throughout the ship had drawn the attention of Vithr. He'd heard thumps like this frequently and when he did he got two trolleys put up there ASAP. He walked in and put his hands on his hips indignantly and groaned. "Alright then ladies - that's enough. Someone give me a hand."

Gough was about to stand up and help when Yar'mak sprung into action to grab Rae's legs. "So who gets the money now?" Gough leaned in and asked Veronica.

Al'ris was not letting her bag fall into anyone else's hands.

-

Meanwhile, Bes'linn had sent one of the other engineers to go looking for Pratima with the message. If she recalled correctly, she was usually hovering close to where the ARIA was housed on the same deck. With a distance that short, she instead decided to go looking for Pratima herself with the engineer by her side.

"Pratima Forty-Eight? Where are you? We have an offer for you and we'll pay you with some freedoms," she said, walking around and looking for the Polysentience Hub that was relocated from its lonely shuttle to beside the tea and coffee machine. She'd noticed that the coffee machine was beginning to get scribbles and 'heraldry' from Pratima's other bodies. She noticed that some attempt had been made to overclock the machine.

She did notice one of the engineers bouncing around on their toes and working at double speed in a delirium after a cup the other day. "Why does she do this?" The engineer asked.

"I think she's compelled to," Bes'linn replied, "Similar to how exothermic chemical reactions spread and propagate."

"You mean fire?"

"Yes."

A small, cute, male body fell from overhead, landing on the Bes'linn's shoulders. He was doing a handstand on them, placing his lips near the engineer's ear "Hiii!" he whispered into her ear "We are a Pratima unit. What do you need us to do?" He had a wide, manic smile on his face and a slightly bluish skin tone

Another head peeked out of one of the corners of the room, glossy eyed and robotic, elbow deep in wiring already. It was apparently building a half-finished arcade multi-game console out of spare components. It observed the short male body, Bes'Linn and the engineer somewhat indifferently, hands continuing to fiddle with the wires and solder symbols to the primitive chips.

Lastly a tall female form stepped out of a makeshift shower in the corner of the room, stark naked and green with a lighter green body, dark red spots down it's back, and a variety of intricate purple vine-shaped tatoos. It shook out it's hair before offering a hand to shake to each of the new people to enter the room. "We have finished improving the caffeine distribution unit. It also now supports IVs, and amphetamine creation and distribution. This task was overheard as a potential request roughly 24 standard hours. Do you have a new service request?"

Veronica laughed as the two fighters tuckered each other out. "Oh come on, girls. You can't be tired already. Your clothes are still on for fucks sake." The geshrin shakes her head. Whether she actually expected more or was just being ornery as usual wasn't clear.

At the question of who gets the money. She chuckles. "Well I could say the house wins, which it did, and take all the money, but I bet too. You all get half your credits back to bet next time. We'll try to put them in some easily tearable clothes next time for you all." She tapped the datajockey, automatically sending back half the bets thrown around back to their respective owners.

One of the Pratima units had been watching the former fight, attracted by the commotion. It was a hulking space-suit of an old style, covered with patches, the face invisible through the faceplate. Without asking permission it gently taps an obscure code onto Veronica's pad, bringing up a com connection to the suit's radio. "That was an interesting fight. This unit is relatively strong, is it's assistance required for transportation to medical areas?" the pad asks in a robotic voice.

Although the Pratima unit succeeds in opening the com, it earns a hard elbow into the faceplate, hard enough to maybe stumble it as Veronica puts the datajockey away. "Hands off my stuff, whatever the fuck you're supposed to be." The ex-pirate speaks rather casually for someone that just retaliated violently to another's presence.

In the back of her head, the reaction also showed what the response to anyone complaining about not getting their credits back would be.

"Rrr. . . Rrraaaaaaugh!" Merril groaned as she forced herself to sit up. Her face wrinkled itself as she bit her lip, forcing the pain down. Wrapping one arm around a weight machine, she dragged herself upwards and onto her feet once more.

"Fffffff. . . Fffu-grr. . ." she growled. The medic quivered as a second arm wrapped around the machine, and her muscles tensed. It seemed like she wasn't even paying attention to anybody at this point.

Mars frowned at the whole thing. It was miracle that Merril won most likely. Unlike that Fyunnen she was not limited in how much power she could use, if Razor would went full on it would probably look a lot different and there would be many broken bones. All those moves are fancy, but good old knee kick in the belly or punch in the jugular will beat fancy grabby moves if you got the reach. And Razor had plenty.

What pissed Mars the most was that it all started over a stupid boxing bag. Now there was ton of people around again and the whole room was moving and doing things. For some reason Al'ris adopted a boxing bag and the pirate girl was threatening a freespacer. And they were abotu to take Razor to medical.

"Geez they just had a fistfight Gough," Mars said with shaking her head. "Just let her sleep it off on a bench you don't have to take her to medical for that. Nothing worse then bruises happened. Look she even breaths fine so her throat is not damaged. You are making it look like she is half dead."

With that she crouched down above Razor and gave her slap across the cheek. Now that the oxygen was flowing again, she should be able to wake up.

"Hey, get up!" Mars shouted into girls face. "On your feet soldier!"

Rae's body reeled a bit with the impact of the slap, that paired with the sudden drill instructor level shouting had Rae back in consciousness. She closed her eyes a moment and groaned, rubbing her cheek where Mars hit just a moment ago . More training then conscious choice kicked in and even before she made it do so her body was getting up and standing rod straight in front of her superior officer. It was obvious it took a few moments for Rae to collect where she was and what had happened

She grunted again and muttered quietly ”Feisty little spitfire” . She spent a few moments, while standing for Mars, regaining her composure and awareness as the blood started to flow properly again. Her Fyunnen physiology helping her quickly recover from the ordeal.

"That feisty little spitfire kicked your arse," Mars replied and chuckled. "Don't tell me the pirates inconvienced you so much that you forgot how to fight. I think we should start getting you back in shape." It won't be bad to poke at this girls skills. It will make her angry about herself. A little push. It would be no surprise if she got a bit rusty after being jailed by pirates. Mars herself knew her skills were lower then before she got on Akahar. Easy life does that to you.

Yar'mak let go of Rae as Bastion roused her back to consciousness. "Hear hear," He looked over to Merrill, and without any courtesies or pretensions, grabbed and lifted her onto one of Vithr's carts. "With any luck you'll get back into fighting shape pretty damn soon." After seeing Rae's performance, he wondered quietly if Keib could floor her. From his time on the ship, he's only seen Keib fight once or twice - both were scary encounters.

He just dropped Merrill onto the trolley like it was no big deal - a snarling no big deal. He was fairly large and Merrill, despite all of her previous sound and fury (now signifying nothing since she was out of puff) was now on the trolley. Without any further words, Vithr just gave him a nod and started pushing the trolley to the medical area as Merrill was breathing heavily on it. "Be glad your back isn't broken, I could hear it from my office." He grumbled.

"The hell did you come from?" Gough asked the Pratima in front of him, frowning and trying to recover the scare he'd gotten. He took his money back from Veronica without much of a thought, willing to accept that it was all a draw - and let the whole pot be evenly split.

"I think we've got it under control," Al'ris told the Freespacer, spare arm still wrapped around her punching bag. She folded the corner of one of the pages and closed the book. She then carried the punching bag and hung it back up. "Tell you what though, I'm hoping that a few more of these come in the rescue shipment 'er something!"

"Hey, I should get what I put in back," Yar'mak scowled at the betting outcome. He put his hands on his hips and crossed his arms, positioning his pudgy body in front of Veronica's and pushing one of the Pratima's aside.

Gough sighed and tried to pull his companion back, "Dude, nobody won - she bet too."

"C'mon!"

Al'ris hadn't taken her winnings yet, and seemed unconcerned with them.

-

Bes'linn was knocked over by the falling Freespacer form. Her glasses fell off and landed on the deck as she collided with it. Her hands searched for them and she placed them back on, standing up and groaning. She mumbled some choicey words under her breath in Lorath before addressing the Freespacers.

"Yes, as a matter of fact - I do have a proposition. There a hole on Deck Two. The area's been sealed off, and we need to assess the damage before the rescue ship gives us the supplies to fix it. The sooner we can assess the damage, the quicker and cleaner the fix will be."

"I also believe one of you has vacuum survival capabilities..." the accompanying engineer observed meekly, "I saw video of it when we were extracting you from your vessel..."

"Can I trust you" Bes'linn said, dusting herself off, "not to goof off on the job or cause a cascade failure? If you deliver, I can help you get more comfortable on this ship with ... whatever it is you Freespacer sorts bring with you."

The accompanying engineer looked at the arcade cabinet that was being built, and looked at the screen and tilted his head. "Hey, is that Spaceranger XZ?" he asked, recognising the title on the screen as it flickered in and out of view. Bes'linn raised an eyebrow at her understudy.

The Pratima unit interacting with Veronica stumbled backwards, it's faceplate shattering from the elbow. This revealed a biological face, with impassive eyes. It fell to the ground. It's lips moved but the sound would come out of veronica's pad. "Have I caused some offense?" it asked both Veronica and Gough

Then it was pushed aside by Yar'mak. "Oof" Veronica's pad announced. It toppled over sideways, falling heavily. "We think we have broken our re breather..." The horse voice whispered from it's actual throat.

___

The Pratima units interacting with Bes'linn noded, after a moment's thought. "We have three units which are rated for vacuum at current. One of these three units has temporarily been rendered vacuum unsuitable. The remaining two should be adequate for performing repairs in vacuum under power."

"Buut" says the short male one "We have a question. What do you mean by goof off?"

"And" asks the robot building the arcade unit "Is it O.K. if we trigger the cascading failure alarms, provided that no actual failure occurs? Sometimes those alarms can go off during repairs and upgrades"

The tall female one steps over to the engineer inspecting the arcade. "Ah yes" she says "That is indeed Spaceranger XZ. Did you know that you can access a secret level if you score precisely 1010110 points in level 3?"

Rae grit her teeth a moment at the comment a brief flash of anger over her face , a moment later training and common sense kicked in and that same face smoothed into one of professional detachment “ Perhaps your right, Ma'm” she manages to get out, not trusting herself to say any more. She turned a bit to watch Merril be taken out on the trolly eying her former opponent a moment.

The crash of the Pratima unit drew her attention way. She shook her head, heading towards the showers. “ Maybe come back when its less crowded. Or makes more sense” She muttered to herself as she made her way from the room.

Merril growled at Yar'mak, forcing herself to roll off the cart and barely land on her knees. Her weight caused the cart to slide into the wall.

"D-don't you. . . fuckin' baby me. . ." she hissed between expressions of pain, a hand grasping the edge of the askew transport. "I can. . . fix it myself."

Merril's hairs stood on end as she gripped the cart harder. The medic's eyes dialated.

As a L'manel, Merril could focus her biology on little things to make her life eaiser. Little things like accelerated healing.

Merril ground her teeth continuously, and her face locked in a grimace. her pupils imploded from full dilation to narrow slits.

"Or what about the Bonus Area on Stage 2 if you backflip into the hole in the bottom of the stage?" The engineer replied. Bes'linn gave him a jab in the ribs with her elbow and he shut up, grimacing and looking decidedly embarrassed.

"In that case, we'll suit up and prepare for vacuum. Do you need any help preparing?" She gave her assistant a firm shove on the back and made him tip towards one of the Pratima units.

"No, we will not need any help. Which unit would you like to accompany you? We have an artificial who could accompany you, and there's also the unit who helped out by reprogramming Rooster," The tall green skinned pratima unit patted Rooster on the head. "They'll be waiting by the lock by the time you get there."

"The spaceworthy one, ideally." Bes'linn replied before strutting off to get herself suited up for spacewalking. The Engineering team had access to non-combat ready M37/38 environment suits. They protected against vacuum, and could take a hit, so what more could you ask for in an engineering uniform?

She suited up in one in the EVA closet and left her uniform and personal effects neatly hung up and arranged in a locker. A few diagnostics run by the dress assured her that the seal was intact and she was ready to spacewalk, and the communications were working too. "Pratimas, do you hear me? I'm at the airlock."

A very bulky walking space suit would stand up in the airlock, and raised a thumb. The space suit was covered with plant designs, the faceplate reflective and impenitrable. "Pratima unit is here," A very eludiated and cultured sounding voice said through the radio. The space suit was very old fashioned looking, and very bulky. It actually looked really clumsy, other than the delicate waldoes attached to the sides and back of the suit. The bulk of the suit made it impossible to determine anything about the person within.

Another suited up engineer joined the EVA team, distracted by how archaic the old suit of the Freespacer looked. Their head tilted noticeably when Bes'linn glared at them and they snapped back to attention. The airlock closed behind them for pressurisation and equalisation with the exterior atmosphere. The lighting went dim and alarms flashed as the door to the space and everything hiding in it openeed.

"Never gets old." The secondary engineer commented, their voice sounded masculine.

"Boots on, hooks on," Bes'linn advised as she made the first step out onto the hull, appearing to fall forward before her outstretched foot collided with the hull below, adhering to magnetism. Hooks were available along the side of the hull to clip oneself to as well in case the magnets failed, Bes'linn and the secondary engineer were anchored and secure.

The Pratima unit clipped its safety line in double, onto the bar of the airlock, then leapt out like a diver, arms against its side as it flew out into space. The safety line would catch it, and it would swing back to the hull as its velocity was redirected by the line. The touchdown impact looked heavy, and painful, but the bulk of the suit clearly protected it as it clipped in with the impact, effortlessly detaching the airlock safety clips from afar and reeling the line back into the suit. The unit stood, "May I link into your navigational network for orientation purposes? I am unfamiliar with the landmarks of your vessel at this time."

"Certainly." Bes'linn replied. Navigation beacons were visible on her HUD, marking points on the hull like a grid with alphanumeric characters for every six metres of the hull. Even through the ship's hull, two markers were visible along the hull, flashing red to indicate that there was a breach. "Let's go for a walk." She could only hear the sound of her own breathing, and perhaps the sound of the blood flowing in her body and her muscles creaking as she moved along the hull with the assistant engineer, unclipping and clipping as though it was second nature as she walked.

After a burst of data, the unit stood from its crouch and begin to work its way rapidly along the hull. The method it used would not be safe in the suits used by Bes'linn and the others... long leaps from long safety lines, clipping as it landed, and reeling in the old line as opposed to walking. As it approached the edge of the breach, it double-cliped then push away from the hull. It then sent Bes'linn some initial pictures of the damage.

The breach appeared to be a long gash about eight metres long and a metre wide at the most at one end. It appeared to have been caused by a stray shot appeared to be caused by a gauss round fired by the pirate ship. Looking inside the breach, it appeared to lead into a hallway containing unoccupied living space. A potted plant was floating around inside, amongst other random objects.

The Pratima unit landed back against the hull. "Permission to inspect the inside of the breach for wiring damage, piping damage, and stowaways, and to inspect the plant? It's bad luck not to rescue a plant from vacuum if it can still be saved."

Bes'linn's lip dropped a little as she heard the freespacer's second request. "Granted?" She arrived behind Pratima and knelt down to inspect the damage firsthand.

The Pratima unit would triple clip the safety clips at the edge of the hole "Please assign one of your assistants to make sure that my safety line is not cut by the edge or the breach." Bes'linn nodded towards the engineer to secure the line and keep it out of any sharp cuts.

It would then step into the hole, small jets helping it dodge debris as it slowly descended. It would look around carefully as it passed the cut it's self for wires and pipes in the skin or the superstructure, of the ship that may have been damaged using headlamps mounted on the old fashioned suit. Once in the room the Pratima unit would look around for stowaways and signs of other life, as it moved slowly towards the plant. It would also check the plant to see the extent of the damage. "Do you have any vacuum safety bubbles that we could stick this plant in? I think it can still make it, it's very dehydrated though, and has suffered some celular damage to it's leaves."

There were few other signs of life inside the breach. Inside the breach however were two extra rooms, doors sealed shut as a safety measure. No signs of sentient life alive or dead were inside the rooms according to scanners, but there was evidence of organic matter, perhaps something like food or vegetable life.

"For real?" The engineer muttered under his breath.

"Respect the plants for they give us air, and food, and take the same risks as we do. We don't give them permission, and they often suffer horrific cancers and damage from space. They are the foundation of Life."

"Just grab the plant and take it back to EVA. I'll hold the line." Bes'linn replied, not willing to let this get in the way of proceedings. The engineer reached in for the plant.

Pratima passed the plant up, very reverently. The engineer grabbed it and lifted it out of the hole, inspecting it, shrugging and walking back towards EVA with it tucked under one arm as Bes'linn kept Pratima's line secure.

Pratima pressed its helmet against the doors, one at a time, listening to the other side for air and life. Each time it did this it would tap out in morse. ". . . . / . / . _ . . / . _ _ . // . . / . . . // _ _ _ / _ . // _ / . . . . / . // . _ _ / . _ / _ . _ _ " Translated it said 'Help is on the way'.

"Something in there?" Bes'linn asked.

"We do not know. We are checking to be absolutely safe." Pratima will say while listening to responces. It followed up with a -.-./-.- (Check) and a -.-./--.- (CQ 'seek you'). It would wait by each door for a fair amount of time while doing this.

There was no answer.

"There does not seem to be, but there is likely air on the other side of these doors. We would not open them to space without a pressure bubble airlock attached as this is not an emergency." Pratima then pried some loose pannels and fuse boxes off the walls to check the wiring and pipes for damage.

"I'm bringing back spare wiring and pipes based on the photos you sent me," The engineer announced over radio. "Can you snap me a couple more for clarity?"

"Certainly." Pratima will do one better, sending set of recordings and pictures of all its saw as it entered, including the inspections it did, with damage highlighted and circled. "Is this sufficient?" It will also snap new pictures, closeups of damaged pipes and wires.

"Yeah. Be back in a few."

The Pratima unit began cleaning the room, throwing the damaged food packets carefully out the gaping hole in the ceiling, making sure not to hit Bes'lin. Also drawing pictures onto the walls with a set of colored grease pencils. "Your ship needs insignia. What was this room used for, Bes'lin?"

"According to Keib it's just surplus food storage. Long lived stuff that doesn't perish." She said as she watched a packet of noodles float by. She grabbed it and secured it.

"A very honorable use. We shall begin decorating it accordingly... It is fortunate we have our laser etching tool on us."

"I think this'll do for us." Keib said, having locked his decisions in. Aiesu smiled, it wasn't often she got to be the salesperson for Lazarus' wares so directly. The advertisements for Lazarus were mostly done by word of mouth or head on.

"Lock them in, they'll be with you shortly on your LSDF resupply ship's heels," Aiesu replied, grinning as the deal was sealed. Keib was smiling too, for different reasons. His ship - formerly the bottom of the ladder and last on the supply list when everything had dried up was going to become a tyrannosaurus of search-and-rescue operation.

-

Vithr watched Merrill spasm and writhe upon the trolley. He could near a bone snapping back into place, sinew and muscle making dry, audible creaks and groans as they followed the bones. The doctor's pace began to slow as he looked into Merrill's catlike eyes. He had to clear his throat just so he could vocalise his relative disgust.

"Huh... that explains why your medical records are so succinct." He'd been studying crew medical records for the newcomers that were on ship. Merrill's records were noticeably shorter than other crew member records but he'd never figured out why until he was seeing it firsthand. "Guess this cat's got nine lives, maybe more. Apparently you were missing most of your chest during your tour on the Hik'rair and were able to walk it off by the time medivac got to you."

He didn't believe it at first, but seeing was believing, and he eventually stopped pushing the cart altogether.

-

Bes'linn was looking out into space as she was helping Pratima with the assessment of the ship's wounds and how to fix them. She noticed her secondary engineer hauling the materials that Pratima had requested, based upon photos that'd been streamed to his monitor. The items in question were floating near him, tethered to his suit and floating in the void as he was traipsing across the hull.

"Alright, here we are." He said as he pulled the crate's tether in and kept it in his hands, close to Bes'linn. The box was about three feet long, two feet wide and a foot across, with a hatch

"Tell me what you need and we'll pass it down." Bes'linn said, focusing on keeping the Freespacer's line taut and secure. "We'll pass down interior fixing materials first, then you wire and repipe, then we'll unclip you, drop any spare materials in, seal the interior and exterior and double check for atmospheric pressure and unseal the room."

"That's our standard operating procedure." The secondary engineer replied as he opened the box, seeing a hiss of air inside it escaping into space. Each piece that was requested was either secured to a wall or floating around inside. The engineer started passing Pratima the pieces of metal she'd use to reseal her side of the Hull once her work was done.

A breath. Two breaths.

All at once, Merril's claws were digging into Vithr's shirt, all 180lbs of woman slamming him into the wall. Catlike pupils stared into the Fyuunen's at an uncomfortably close range. Well, as uncomfortably close as the shorter woman could get.

"Don't," she breathed, "you talk to me about those weaklings. They ain't got nothing worth showing on that piss-bucket."

If Vithr cared to look and notice, he would see that Merril was sweating profusely, with a perverted blush spread across her face.

The wildcat's mitts unfurled, shakily removing themselves from the doctor's person. The posessor of said mitts staggered backwards, as if on unsteady footing, then hobbled down the hall slowly.