The Middleman Starship

(The Ship): http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs51/f/2009/ ... Re4s3r.jpg

DESIGNATE: COMBAT FRIGATE UNIT, 'MIDDLEMAN,' FORMER PROPERTY OF THE NOW FALLEN STELLARSHIELD FORCES

APPROXIMATELY 0900 HOURS AFTER THE INVASION OF STRONGHAVEN.

SHIP IS CURRENTLY HURDLING THROUGH TOWARDS THE EDGE OF THE CH'TALLA SYSTEM AT HALF SPEEDS…


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The Middleman Starship was not in the most majestic of appearances, having survived at least two minor conflicts without a scratch on the poor vessel. That was before the attack on the once mighty planet at the center of the universe, and its military-police installation, Stronghaven. Little could be sent away to escape the destruction of the facilities, the death of their most esteemed personnel, and the conquest by the invaders, and the traitors that had been hidden among their special forces, the Cronos Corps, and its Titans, once revered for millennia for their armor, strength, and inability to move any direction but forward towards the enemy encampment with such an uncanny amount of willpower for any living creature.

The ship did well with the current optic camouflage giving it a slightly darker shade. It wasn't like a chameleon in that it could instantaneously turn invisible. It was much like the camouflage of any soldier that had to put on an entire uniform. One constant pattern that required the work of the soldier to truly be utilized properly. There were at least about two repeating plasma-gatlers, much like machine guns, only these could also serve the alternate function of charging and pooling its energies together into one, high power blast. As for explosives, there was one area that fired off regular missiles, of which, the crew of this particular vessel only possessed four of.

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Kanro was manning the controls, his eyes trained constantly on the infinite darkness and silver spots painted onto the sturdy screen before him. The blast shield had been raised up for the moment to better improve the camo index percentage on the ship's status-board, and protect against surprise attacks, leaving an exterior camera to give an immediate view, coupled with a scanner that could detect objects from miles away, within the upper thousands in most cases. But it always seemed that during a dog fight or some other situation, the device had its scanning power diminished.

What appeared to be a breeze seemed to flow through the little field of crops that seemed to be the Psionic's head of jet black hair, his telekinetic abilities running through his hair so he could keep his hands on the steering system and the consoles and panels surrounding it. Physically he looked awful, however. Despite his fairly well kept hair and his seemingly peak health body, his eyes possessed dark circles about them, nearly unblinking, and overall making it incredibly clear that this humanoid required rest, and fast. He'd exhausted himself using his telekinesis to fend off attackers back on the academy, and the time that passed after was spent staying alert, and keeping a cool head. Giving out orders to everyone.

He had the techies checking everything right down to every component (if he could have made them, the subatomic level even) to see what they could learn about the ship, and what needed fixing. One of the girls was to inventory the supplies, and another, the weapons. He was quite sure he asked that one girl, Indra, was it? to sit at the empty co-pilot's seat. Or maybe he'd requested that android to do it?

Regardless, he suddenly stopped, and let go of the controls, his telekinetic powers pressing a combination of buttons. Just moments before the attack, he'd learned how to use autopilot on a ship as complex as this.

With that done, he closed his eyes, keeping one hand on his holster, and the other, on the steering…

Volf was in the engine room, with his visor shaded to counter the light from the energized plasma reactors that powered the ship. He was in constant commune with the ships inboard automated damage analysis systems, trying to track down and list every problem with the ship, before going through and fixing them in order of urgency. Thankfully, the life support systems were virtually untouched by all that had happened during, and after, the invasion.

There were three problems that had to be fixed ASAP:
A leak in the charged plasma feed to the weapons,
One damaged propulsion engine and its stalled equal on the opposite side of the ship,
And re-aligning the arrays for the shield generator.

At this time Volf knew he needed rest, but those three repairs where what was needed most, and could not be put on hold. He then looked at his tool belt and saw that he was running low on duct tape and sealant foam. "Just enough to get the important stuff fixed." He thought to himself. However, he did not have enough to fix up after even one more engagement if the shields were to go down. "Engine room to pilot, engine room to pilot. Will we be stopping by any planets where I could get some more repair materials, sir?" Volf hailed over the ship's internal comms.

Artyom was industriously working in what could be called the ship's robotics lab. To be more specific, it was little more than a spare room the bio-android had declared as his and filled it with all manner of useful spare parts to work on, a couple of which he had to give up in order to help finish system repairs to the Middleman. The rest of the crew might've been pretty shocked at such bold behaviour from a bio-android, were it not for the whole "fleeing for our very lives" situation going down currently.

Wondering how the crew was holding up after the worst of their ordeal was over, Artyom decided to send out one of his drones to patrol the ship. Each drone was round in shape, about the size of a human head and had a single green eye. They had proven to be invaluable during the running repairs that had to be made to the ship, being able to drastically lighten the workload for the skeleton crew.

Artyom continued working on a little project of his for a while longer, at the same time looking through the drone's vision and moving it through the ship. He could've sent a small group of them on patrol, but owing to the current lack of shipboard emergencies there really was no need. The drone checked each room before pressing onward to the next. Engines, kitchen, gun deck, armoury, its gaze swept across them all, checking for anything that was amiss.

When the drone arrived at the ship's cockpit, Artyom could see that their leader was in dire need of some rest. The drone moved a little closer so that it could get the attention of the co-pilot, if not Kanro himself. Since he couldn't find any speech circuits for remote communication for the drones, the bio-android had to resort to using the drone to give a few meaningful looks from pilot to co-pilot, indicating that they should probably switch places. With that done, the drone left to continue its patrol down the medical bay, and any other rooms it might have missed out.

Indiela's chin was rested in her hand. Her eyes, currently green, were fixed on Kanro. At first, she had been looking around the ship and carefully watching Kanro as he flew the ship. Every so often, he would use his telekinesis, which impressed her every time. She felt her eyes drifting shut and pulled them open once again. The boy's exhaustion was literally radiating off of him, and was causing Indie to become a little tired herself. Earlier, when they had met, she saw that his aura was a bright lively green. He was very much awake and ready to get this trip started, now however, it was dull and lacked any energy it possessed before. It almost looked like murky green water surrounding him. She began stretching out her limbs, receiving satisfactory pops from her neck and back. Some people thought it was gross, but she loved the feeling and sound of it.

Just as she was going to say something to Kanro, something came flying into the room. It was a drone, no bigger than her head. At first, she was startled, but then remembered Artyom, whom she had met earlier. These flying robots were his pets, or something like that. Either way, they listened to what he wanted. It's single eye moved back and forth between Kanro and Indiela, but she didn't understand. She stood up, ready to say something, hoping she could get some sort of answer, but it went away and towards where the medical area was.

The young girl let out an audible sigh and turned to face Kanro. His eyes drifted shut and Indiela felt the tug of unconsciousness. "Hey," she whispered, not wanting to startle him. "Wake up," her voice came, a bit louder this time. She nudged him with her gloved hand, hoping he would stir. "We probably should switch. You get some rest. I can manage here, I have been watching, and I'm a fast learner," she said, as her eyes faded to a dark brown. That was one aspect of her abilities that she let people know about, her appearance changes. That wasn't something that needed to be kept secret.

After a couple of minutes and getting the shield generator's arrays realigned, Volf decided to hail the cockpit again. "Engine Room to Cockpit, Engine Room to Cockpit. When are we going to be passing by a planet where I can get some repair supplies. Over."

Volf knew from the analysis systems that the ship was on auto-pilot, so a good conclusion was that whoever was piloting was sleeping. This worried Volf though, because if they were going to pass by a planet where he could get some repair materials it would be vital that they stop there. Volf then turned to his next task, the plasma feed for the weapons. With the shields up, the ship could get hit a few times before any damage were to be caused. Another reason that the weapons should be fixed first was the fact that, even if they they had engines at full power, this was not the worlds fastest ship and a persistent attacker could easily out run the Middleman. However, seeing that without the engines they needed the weapons to fend off any threats. Also, sealing the plasma feed was easier then to fix then the problems reported by the damage analysis systems. "Well, I guess this is the excitement that every little kid sees in the military." Volf said near silently to himself.

Ninari leaned down and tapped on the small glass box containing her latest patient, a rather large insect with two sets of translucent wings and a tapered body. It's two round, bulging sets of eyes regarded her from behind the pane, seemingly beyond contemplating, let alone understanding, its fate at the hands of its "rescuer." As they fled the planet, the stowaway had crawled up her pant leg and made its way quietly into the concavity of her rib cage where it tickled her until she plucked the offender from her shirt, only to find one of its six legs broken off at the lower joint.

After patching up her fellow crew mates, she "quarantined" the intruder, ignoring the sniggers from her friends, and left to complete her inventory duties. Though Archernarans spent fleeting periods of inactivity in which they remained perfectly still with eyes closed , they did not actually sleep in a state of REM like the average humanoid, and only went into hibernation during cold weather. As such, Ninari had managed to complete her tasks well ahead of schedule, and now spent her free time studying the bug. Certain she was alone, she switched off her universal translator so she could hear herself think without the constant echo of some unfamiliar voice at her ear.

"I just don't understand why you can't simply grow a new leg," she announced upon a second examination, though whether the bug actually understood her was irrelevant, as the only thing it would hear was the clicks and trills from her lips coupled with intermittent, almost melodic vibrations from deep inside her throat. "You're not at all like the wortflies on my homeworld."

The bug did not respond, nor did it appear inclined to.

The sticky pad of her finger left a fat smear on the glass as she practically cooed. "Well, aren't you just a cute, hairy little thing?"

Ninari lifted the top panel, allowing the bug to struggle to the edge and start to fly upward. At last! The papery wings beat furiously. Freedom was imminent, and the insect attempted to lift off, barely reaching suitable altitude when the Archernaran's tongue shot out. Snap! In the blink of an eye, the tapered body disappeared. Ninari smacked her lips together, using her fingers to quickly brush any stray pieces into her mouth before swallowing whole.

"Hmm," she mused after a moment, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Not bad. A little dry. But, as they say on Fenrir, one snack is as good as another."

"Heeey Now." Went a suddenly more alert Kanro, just barely feeling a slight, telepathic poke as he moved in to make sure she knew he didn't mean any ill will towards her. He was certainly only messing around with the girl to see if she really was capable of changing her form, or perhaps some kind of disguised assassin, come here to end the initiative before it even had a chance to grow. Surely letting an empty StellarShield starship would have been quite the message to send to the Federation News Network, and in turn, the universe on why upholding the law would be detrimental to your health

"Hey hey, just testing you, Indie. Besides, even the most minor change of form, whether it be those lovely chocolate browns back into the emeralds from earlier, made me wonder if you were some sort of spy with shapeshifting powers. As self-proclaimed captain, I think I'd like to know more about my crew. Especially the things they'll be bringing to the table, of course I admit, I didn't exactly ask in the most direct, or the nicest of ways, but we could definitely work on people skills later. Y'know, after we all accept the fact we're all that's left of the almighty law? The one we'd sworn to uphold, as well as a 500 point score on our final exams back at the academy?"

Kanro struggled to keep his eyelids up, each blink becoming heavier than the last, as he drifted over towards one of the two sleeping cots he'd had set up in the pilot's room, so he could act quickly in the heat of an outer space dogfight.

"Now, personal issues aside… We're counting on you to navigate through these asteroids and into the station…"

But then he seemed to struggle on the last part, feeling so unfamiliar with using it himself. A phrase he'd heard one too many times during training scenarios.

"…That's an Order, Indiela."

Volf walked out of engine rooms after feeling the slight bump of landing. He then made his way to the briefing room of the ship with his scrap that he had collected, expecting Kanro, or whoever he chose to be copilot, to be giving everyone a breifing on how operations are going to be handled on the mining station. Volf had reached the breifing room to find noone there. "Well, the engine room is the closest to the briefing room." Adion said to himself.

With the patrol long completed and the ship coming in to land at a mining station for provisions, Artyom put the drone back into storage and prepared to join the away party. He didn't take any parts from his room to sell, figuring that they'd be better off with the crew just in case they were needed in the future. However, he did take the small amount of money that he had on him before the chaos back on Stronghaven so he could at least buy something.

The bio-android went from his lab to just outside the cockpit, where he figured it would be best to wait for further instructions once the ship finished its landing sequence. The reasoning behind this was that Artyom would be able to get the Captain's attention once he exited the cockpit. Failing that, Indeila would do.

Her hunger temporarily sated and meal slowly digesting, Ninari had taken one of the cots in the med bay for the last twenty minutes of their flight. Though she had not actually slept, the ship's landing jarred her out of her trance-like state, and she startled as though having woken from deep slumber. Regaining her bearings, she sat up and climbed off the cot, deliberately placing her feet on the floor, one at a time. She was unaccustomed to consistently high levels of activity associated with risky operations like this one, and their escape had taken its toll by way of physical fatigue. While her body seemed to disagree with her desire to move, she was mentally alert, at least.

By the time she changed from her medical uniform back into suitable attire and made her way to the bridge, she found she wasn't the first to arrive. Ninari wasn't even really used to leaving the medical wards and bays of ships on such a regular basis, but-- she patted the compartment in her exosuit containing her Archernar credit chit and leftover funds from Stronghaven-- she figured she could stand to restock a few things.

She started to greet Artyom with a high-pitched trilling sound, realizing she still had her translator off, and quickly switched it back on with a flutter of her nictitating membranes and a deepening of her greenish skin that could be construed as slight embarrassment as she regained her composure.

"Good Morning, Kinova-sar," she said, the translator emulating a subdued phalanging effect in her voice as she greeted him with a formal tone. The term 'sar' an Archernaran usually expressed at the end of a surname denoted one's status as above that of the speaker.

Volf had managed to get to the ship after his trip out to the market. His visit to the bar, after buying the parts, had led him to have a few shots. Once Volf had managed to put the stuff he bought away, he had an odd feeling. Taking this as a need to go, Volf walked to the main men's bathroom before passing out directly in front of its door.