Skitter Scatter

Posted on Wed Jan 22nd, 2020 @ 8:56pm by Jeassaho Kea (*) & Fordyce Kirschler PhD & Draia Theroh & Chief Engineer Michael Burnstein & Laurier Cami

Mission: Mission 10 - Temperance
Location: Temperance Engineering
Timeline: MD 12 19:00
2044 words - 4.1 OF Standard Post Measure

"Oi!"

Thus came the loud, intelligent shout from Angus as the group once again found themselves digging into the depths of the ship's engineering systems. They had searched throughout the ship for signs of a strange creature (or worse), finding nothing more than a few wires out of place and doors opened when no one was around. The latter was easy enough to explain via a fault in the back-up power they had rigged up, but the former?

It meant something was moving. And the young medic who absolutely insisted there was something spooky on the ship made Angus suspicious. More than suspicious. Triply suspicious, really, of what was lurking in the depths. But now? Now he found...

Something.

"What you got there, Angie?" Cami inquired, lurking just over his shoulder. "Another creepy-crawly thing?"

"Nothin' a baryon sweep wouldn't have killed," Ford said. He'd only been on the ship all of a day and it hadn't been too practical of a suggestion when he'd made it, so he didn't hold it against them for turning it down. Most baryon sweeps were ship-wide and conducted at specialized facilities. Rigging up a portable generator to sweep room-by-room would have been time-consuming and onerous. Safe, but time-consuming and onerous.

"Sadly, I'm sure the giant spider lovers would object," Burnie remarked, rolling his eyes. "But it wouldn't help here anyway. Whatever's in there would be inside the isolator field protecting the warp core, so we're going to have to deal with it some other way."

Jeassaho blinked as she waited looking, everyone over. Her head still ached from the last time she was on the vessel but nothing had been found yet that would have been big enough to give her a head injury. "Fire?" She piped up only half-joking.

Sitting in the corner, Draia Theroh had been keeping to herself, fiddling with a Cardassian tricorder in her lap. She bobbed her head from side to side, as she considered Jeassaho's suggestion and then she nodded once. "Fire," Draia echoed. As she thought about it more, she vocalized a single, "Huh."

"Fire? That'll damage systems." Angus whipped his head around at the surrounding group as they all hovered around the latch that led to one of the maintenance tubes in the core. "It might be all protected, whatever it is, but why dun we see what it is before we all decide to go kill the damn thing?"

"Okay, we'll hold off on the 'kill it with fire' idea," Burnie said, but lifted a hand welder as he moved to enter the hatch. "I'm keeping the option open though."

"I do not mind cleaning up after fire," Jeassaho whispered to Burnie to make the point that fire was still very much an option for her. She did not mind cleaning up damage is she was the one who had caused it.

"Anti-fire?" Draia wondered aloud, but she never explained her thought beyond that. She kept her head down. Tapping on the screen of her tricorder, she investigated the use of force fields and vacuum in the fire suppression systems.

The latch opened up to reveal a phaser pistol pointed in the direction of Burnie's head. The owner of said pistol was a fiery-haired Trill woman, who glared at hatch-opener with heated intensity. She gave a pause, eyes narrowing.

"Prophets!" Cami exclaimed, suddenly clutching a lot tighter to her engineering kit.

"Hey now," Burnie said calmly, raising his hands in a gesture of offering no threat. In contrast to his response to a big spider, he was practically relaxed about a phaser pointed at his head. But then he'd had phasers pointed at him any number of times, and the being with the weapon was a person; not a giant spider. "We don't mean you any harm. We're just investigating this ship, which we found adrift in space."

Ford's hand went instinctively to his hip, but the Dai-Matsa Consolidated's Polarized Phase Blaster MK IX he usually kept strapped there was missing. He cursed under his breath, recalling the earlier incident of being disarmed by the ship's "armoury officer." The best defense he had now was a handful of isolinear chips, a deactivated plasma torch, a handheld light, and a standard-issue engineering work kit case. In short, nothing useful.

"You!" Jeassaho suddenly had a spark of memory hitting her hard. She knew this woman and it was from two days ago when she had been knocked out. It seemed Stan and his friends were in the clear after all. "You are the one that hit me over the head!"

Angus himself took a few steps back, as if to let everyone else get a better look at what was going on. Or let someone else get themselves shot first. His hand went to the wrench hanging off of the side of his belt, as he (quietly) observed. Everyone else was loud enough for his liking.

The Trill woman's eyes darted between the gathered gaggle of engineers, frowning. It took her another hesitant moment to lower the phaser pistol, though she still had it firmly gripped in her hand. "So did I. It was abandoned when I found it, so I didn't think anyone else was going to..." she waved the pistol around at the group with a momentary gesture. "Crash my party. If it had been abandoned this long, what was to say it wasn't gonna be abandoned more? Who're you with? Pirates? Scavengers?" she lowered her voice, leaning forward with a conspiratorial look, ".... Starfleet?"

Burnie relaxed slightly, lowering his hands when she lowered the phaser, but looked at her suspiciously. They'd scanned for life signs and found none. While the area she'd come from might have masked her signal, he was still leery. "Salvage," he replied shortly. "And it sure looked abandoned when we found it. How did you get here? Where's your ship?"

"Well that's an issue." Lihau climbed out of the tube she had been hiding in, nonplussed by the group. She sat in front of them, phaser still in her hand as she crossed her legs over each other. And then pointedly did not answer the questions posed. "We'll have to work something out. You're here for salvage and I'm just here for the ship itself. That's... gonna be a problem, 'cause I need most of these ship's parts for operation... So, we'll have to work something out here."

"You did not answer the rest of the questions." Jeassaho pointed out wanting to know how the woman got to the ship as she did not just come out of thin air and where the ship that got her there was now. "How did you get here? Where's your ship? And my own question why did you hit me?"

"I flew here." Lihau looked Jeassaho up and down. The look on her face did not register any recognition. Not in the slightest. "You startled me." She didn't seem the least bit phased by the group, leaning against the nearby bulkhead, amused look on her face. "So, we gonna work together or do I have to call in the big guns?"

Jeassaho was not amused by the response from the woman at all, she was far to cool say the least and Jeassaho did not like it. "Well, I think you already have called your Captain so I think we should just call in the big guns hmm?" Jeassaho said seeing a faint red light on the woman's belt. It was a communication device, a crude one but one nevertheless.

"You caught me." Lihau gave a shrug. "And since I've got literally none of anyone's names or intentions aside from scavenging, I'm just gonna send a message and tell my big guns that there's malicious intent and bring a ton of phasers. Ooor we could be a little less grumpy at the one person in front of them, eh?"

Jeassaho rolled her eyes at the woe be me routine. The woman was a known danger and had the one weapon other than an array of Engineering tools in the room. "The one person who has a weapon and is known to attack people sure." Jeassaho pointed out pulling out her communicator moving towards the back of the room out of earshot to talk to SS Mary Rose.

"Maybe if you gave us your name and affiliation, we'd feel less 'grumpy'," Burnie replied. "We came from the ship right out there along side this one. Obviously you knew we were here for some time, but you've been playing 'ghost' since we got here instead of coming out and laying your claim or discussing co-operation. Which frankly makes me wonder about your motives and about whether you have any big guns to call or are just bluffing."

"Ditto to you." Lihau raised her brow. "I don't know who you are and there are more of you than there are of me. What's that look like to you? All I've heard is that you're scavengers. And you've got that little rustbucket out there. No names, no designations, no nothing. Could mean you're still with pirates. How do I know? If I die, now you don't know who I am or who's coming to get me. Element of surprise."

"I don't like it," Cami squeaked nervously. "She knocked out Jea. And she's been hiding around here without showing herself for days."

Scoffing out her incredulity, Draia echoed Lihau's words that had sounded especially shrill to her ears. "If you die???" Draia said emphatically, surprised by the turn the conversation was taking. Despite her rapt attention, she remained seated on the deck, not too far away from the group. "Babe, no one is threatening to kill you," Draia insisted, "Or chop up your remains, or toss your remains in a plasma injector..."

"...or chain you to a live EPS feed or loop you indefinitely through the pattern buffer or feed you to an industrial replicator," added Ford, enthusiastically following the Cardassian's morbid line of thinking.

"... Not helping the pirates case, over here with all your threats and such." Lihau pointed out, eyes narrowing on Draia for an uncomfortably long time before crossing her arms against her chest. "And still no names."

"I notice we haven't gotten yours either," Burnie remarked dryly. "We have no reason to think you're not a pirate, and since you're clearly not Starfleet, no reason to think you're trying to claim this ship anything legitimate. But, hey, if you really think getting a name is essential to the conversation, I'm Mike." He crossed his arms. "Your turn."

Stubborn engineers didn't throw her off. Instead, the vibrant red-head waited till Burnie introduced himself before she immediately brightened up. "That wasn't so hard. Lihau Nezri."

"I am Jeassaho." The Engineer noted as she returned closing the communicator she was carrying. "I would say it was a pleasure to meet you but you could have killed me." The Engineer was not going to forgive that any time soon.

From where she was sitting cross-legged on the deck, the Cardassian engineer introduced herself too. "I'm Draia," she said, speaking quickly and she offered a wave. "Freelancer and trained dancer. Ex-Starfleet."

As the introductions happened the Engineering door opened and Gregnol walked in and noticed the unfamiliar woman in the midst with the only weapon. He would be as blunt as she had been so far according to his wife's summons. "If we are introducing ourselves. I'm Gregnol and this is my ship and I would like to talk to your Captain. Now." He said simply. He wanted to meet this so-called Captain who had sent someone onto something he was acquiring instead of just talking.

OFF::

Rueben Gregnol
Captain
SS Mary Rose

Lieutenant Commander (LOA) Jeassaho Kea
Engineer
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Gregnol)

Michael Burnstein
Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Laurier Cami
Engineer
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Jake)

Draia Theroh
Assistant Chief Engineer
SS Mary Rose

Angus Ap Owen
Engineer (in the back. Somewhere)
SS Mary Rose
(PNPC Uhin)

Lihau Nezri
'Strange Bug'
(PNPC Uhin)

Dr. Ford Kirschler
Chief of Operations
SS Mary Rose