Fu Ju Min's Story

Monty gave a heavy sigh, stood up and walked over to the agent. With an other sigh, "Your both right and... I'm... I apologize." Extended his right hand towards the agent. "Its just... me, operatives, the alliance don't have a good past. And with everything going on including coordinates to nothing. I hate flying blind. I haven't made it this far this long to not question when things don't feel right." After that he turned to Ju, "Sorry ma'am. I will try and keep my feeling to myself from now on." He then sat back down turning to the controls and stared into the black. Quietly to himself, "Burn, burn until you see black. Black as night, cold as the grave, only there will I find my place and my peace." After realizing he had not heard from the engine room, he tried the com again, "Every thing ok down there." Turned off all but the control lights in the front of the bridge as he continued to stare into the black awaiting a response on the com.

Monty called the engine room, "Starting the pulse engines now. Once we're up to speed and you've looked everything over we'll cut the engines." After making sure the course was set and all systems were green. Monty got up, nodded to the captain and the agent, "We're green across the board. I'm headed below if I'm needed." Walked down the stairs to the rec area, and started working out. He started running from the portside bulkhead to the starboard side and back. After the first five laps he dropped and did five push ups and sits, then ran an other ten laps. Followed by ten pushups and sits up and so on. Once he finished his fifth set, he headed to the head and sink cleaned himself, cause he realized he didn't have an other set of close to change into.

"Glad to hear it. I’ll call you to the helm if anything changes." She waved Montgomery off as he headed down to the main deck. It was starting to get late; there was no reason to keep him at the helm.

A flicker of light caught her eye; her watch had sprung to life. The cargo bay’s communications socket was active. Odd, the only thing down there was Mason’s cargo. Just what had that guy brought on her ship? She flagged the socket and tagged the device, more information never hurt and she wanted to know when Mason was sending communications out from her ship. She decided against confronting him right away, best to not tip her hand just yet. Military vessels didn’t usually have this level of surveillance. The beauty of aftermarket modifications. It’d taken a week to get the wiring set up properly, and a month to get all the bugs sorted out, but the knowledge was useful. Even if it’d been installed by Tai Hong to gather evidence, she still had her ship, and now the tools were hers.

"So I’m guessing you’re not going to puke then?" She turned her attention to Charles. "That’s too bad, could have been fun." She shrugged, turning to head towards her cabin. It would be nice to get out of these clothes, they were bit light for the ship and they were gritty with the sand from the shipyard.

Noticing that he hadn’t left, she turned back to Charles. "Now’s as a good a time as any to sleep, Charles. We don’t have the sun out here to tell us when to sleep. I do hope you’re good at setting your own schedule. There’s a lot of that out here." The rest of the crew had all been on ships before so they’d probably be heading to sleep themselves before long.

Sleep. The one and only time of weakness.

Charles would have to set up some sort of motion sensor application on his PDA to watch the door, and, obviously, his MagSnub would be safely resting within easy reach. You couldn't take any chances with those out for blood.

"No, Captain, I believe I can hold my stomach better than that. I shall probably have to raid the medical bay for some Aspirin eventually, though..."

You call that a joke?, some part of his brain whispered, but Charles didn't care. He was trying, right?

Right.

"In either case, Captain, I do agree that retiring might be good. However, if you should have any Melatonin..."

Ju Min was glad she had her back to Charles, she could feel the momentary flicker of her expression. Melatonin, a natural, non-habit-forming sleep aid. She’d never needed it before…well until a week ago. Yet, the bottle of pills was in her cabin. Kiran had given it to her. Something about not wanting to fly on a ship driven by someone who hadn’t slept in two solid days.

"Yeah., I’ve got a handful you can have," She shrugged, her voice steady again. "Don’t get dependent on them though, you’re going to need to make your sleep schedule out here. As long as you don’t wake the others and you’re awake when I need you, I don’t care how you do it." There were different approaches to sleeping in the Black. Some people took short naps throughout the day, others maintained a single waking and sleeping cycle. Personally she would sleep for a few hours, spend an hour or two awake, then go back to sleep. She enjoyed having the private time, especially these past few days.

"Here." She shook a handful of pills out and set them down on table. "When you’re done with the bottle give it back to Kiran, they’re actually his." She said, tossing the bottle over to Charles. It was definitely getting time for her to sleep. Too many memories coming back. The nice thing about melatonin was she didn't have to worry about interactions with liquor. Yeah, a drink, that's what she needed.

Popping a couple of the dry, snow-white pills into his mouth, Charles moved them under his tongue to allow them to break down correctly. He picked up the Melatonin bottle, gave a quick salute (as was customary - the Captain outranked him, so he saluted. Simple.) and walked back to the elevator.

Musing on this or that while the elevator rolled down, he promptly tried to remember where in the hell the crew quarters were, then spent about five minutes stumbling his way back to them, forgetting to return the pills on the way.

A straight few days of sleepless running, hiding, and worse combined with the potency of the Melatonin and the withdrawal of the anti-sleep powder to absolutely crush all of Charles's will to sleep; he stumbled into the room he had used before heading down to the mess hall and almost immediately collapsed on the bunk, still fully clothed, and shut his eyes.

She was waiting on the other side of the dropped eyelids.

Kiran chuckled a bit as Zasha stalked off. Perhaps it was the environment, he wasn’t terribly used to being on a ship, and it was possible that the atmosphere on ships had different courtship rituals than he was accustomed to, no matter, he’d come to pick them up in time. Regardless, he’d figure out the crew eventually. It seemed as though most of the men on the ship were dead ends for him, if the hostile looks were any indication. No matter, it wouldn’t be the first time a man had started by glaring at him and ended up panting his name. He’d figure his way around the new crew eventually.

Not that getting in shouting matches with the captain was going to help with that. He sighed and started towards the elevator. Everyone else was in their bunks by now, so Ju Min would probably be alone by now, which made her easier to talk with. Stepping off the elevator, he passed by his own cabin's door to knock on Ju Min’s.

“Hey…Ju Min?” He wasn’t entirely sure what to expect when she answered the door. This past week she’d been a nearly random collection of reactions and emotions. “Ju Min, I know you’re not asleep yet.”

"Fuck off, you blue-haired leach." The voice behind the door was ever-so slightly-slurred, a sound so familiar to him he could almost guess how far into the third drink she was.

“Look, open the door and share your whiskey.” As the door slid open he chuckled, he hadn’t expected to have called the liquor she was drinking too. But there she was, her shirt shrugged off next to her bed, her pants askew and undone, a half-full glass of whiskey in one hand and the half-full bottle in the other. Ju Min always seemed to have a new bottle of liquor each night. It would be impressive if it wasn’t a little concerning.

"I don't gotta share with a Tian Di Wu Yohn Kai Tze like you..." It hardly seemed possible, but Ju Min did indeed get more profane when she was inebriated.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He took the bottle from her, getting no resistance as she slumped down against the door frame. “Gon Beh, mei-mei.” He took a drink and sat down across from her, passing her the bottle back.

“I'm older than you, chwen. Don't you mei-mei me” She filled her glass from the bottle, then paused, staring blankly at the bottle. “Kiran...what the fuck am I doing?”

“You're hogging the bottle, like a jerk.” He took the bottle back, a little taken aback when Ju Min simply let the bottle go with no resistance.

“No, I mean...all this. This storm of mi tian gohn that I'm in. I'm all wo toh wu now, and here I am dragging this chai neow crew around the 'Verse.” Her eyes were fixed on the glass of whiskey in front of her, as if there was some sort of revelation in the ripples for her. “I mean, sure, we're better off on the Qi than we would ever be laying low planetside. But...” Her shoulders shuddered, a strangled little whimper following a few seconds of silence. “You know what it was like...before...I don't know how to run this thing myself. If it weren't for Xhava, I probably wouldn't even have been able to get a crew. I don't know what I'm doing here Kiran.”

Kiran took another swig from the bottle. It wasn't great whiskey, and drinking wasn't one of his favorite pass times, but he had the feeling Ju Min could use the solidarity right now. “You've got us a job, right? Just keep the crew paid, keep the pantry full, keep the Qi pointed in the direction of your next payday. That's all you need to do Ju Min, just keep doing what you're already doing.” He remembered something, reaching into his pocket. “By the way, I brought you some of that protein paste you like so much.” He handed her a tube of the paste. “It's easier for you to keep down, right?” He smiled softly as she nodded and took the tube. “Eat, then get yourself to bed. You need to be lucid if you're going to pay me back.”

Ju Min chuckled harshly and stood up, stuffing the tube into her pocket. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's all this is, huh? You keep me propped up long enough to pay you back?”

“You know it.” Kiran smirked and stood up. He handed Ju Min back her whiskey, watching her as she stumbled to her feet and closed the door. He chuckled and turned back to his cabin, needing to head to bed himself.

OOC: Alright folks, sorry this took me so long to get posted. I'll time-skip us to the day before we hit the station with my next post (hopefully tomorrow).
And I also promise it won't be this long.

"Alright." Ju Min scanned the faces of everyone at the table. They were only a day away from arriving at the station, the ship had made good time and everyone seemed to be settling in nicely. But this was still the crew's first real job, a good test run, but it was best to maek sure everyone knew what they were doing before they hit the deck. "Before we all subject ourselves to whatever it is Kiran has concocted in the kitchen--"

“They’re pancakes Ju Min. Stop acting like this is some bizarre food you’ve never heard of before.” Kiran’s drawl came from the kitchen, where the smell of food was just beginning to waft through the ship

"Whatever." Ju Min rolled her eyes and pulled up a map, turning everyone’s attention to the screen she’d pulled down between the mess and the main deck.



"This is our best guess at what we’re going to see in the station. We’ve run scans with sonar and infrared, so we can be sure that if there’s anything organic on that station, it’s not breathing anymore. No promises this map is accurate, but it’s at least an idea of the layout.

“We’ll be docking in Arrivals, then we’ll split into three groups to spread out and grab what we can of value. If you spot something useful or that looks like it’ll fence well, then grab it. We’re not desperate for any supplies, but I want each group to focus on a particular section of the ship.

"Montgomery, you and Harry will hit the Cargo bay and see if there’s anything good in there, if there’s nothing, move on to Storage and see what you can get there. Zasha, You dig through the Engineering and see what you can get. Spare parts, fuel, any tools that catch your eye. Kiran, your job is to run whatever they find back to the ship. Above all, you four, be ready to ditch when I give the word."

"Charles and I will be digging through the Research wings. Hopefully we’ll find some sort of tube-grown alien, super weapon, or something else that’ll sell for bank. I’ll keep in contact with you guys through these…" She set out five rectangular devices made up of half speaker and a single button underneath it. "Press the button to contact me, otherwise I’ll be able to contact you when it’s time to get out of there. With any luck, that won’t be because I’ve unleashed a horrible alien plague destined to consume the ‘Verse.

"Questions?"

To himself, "Burn, burn until you see black." Monty looked over at Ju, "Duìzhǎng, whats the stations status? And why has she gone dark? I'm guessing the crew didn't just get board of her and leave." With that he gave Harry a quick look over. 'Hope he at less as a good idea on what to grab. Doesn't seem like the get my own hands dirty if I don't have to guy.' Then he went back to studying the map.

"Well, we’re not wholly sure, actually." Ju Min shrugged, turning her attention to the screen.

"There’s nothing overtly wrong with the station from what we can see at this point. The Security wing’s been damaged, and there’s a hole in the hull there. It's sealed off by the bulkheads so we're not in any danger from it." Her displeasure was clear in her voice. Normally the Security wing would be her first stop, seeing as it would likely have all the guns. Weapons always fenced well, if she chose to fence them. It also never hurt to keep them on hand. Maybe it was for the best though, the last thing this crew needed was more weapons, especially Monty.

"But otherwise the station’s intact, hell, the ventilation system is even still running, but the whole thing is just…dark. The odd flicker of light here and there, seems like some of the electronics may still be functioning, but from what we can see here, the place is abandoned.

"It’s an old Alliance military station, currently tied up in paperwork and bureaucracy. The place was cloaked, so whatever they were probably wasn’t…friendly. I’m only half-joking about the plague, so we’re clear. Could be they had a virus that spread and wiped out the crew, leaving the systems untouched. Could be someone sabotaged the research, killed the crew, and took off on their own. All we know is that there’s nothing alive on that station." She shrugged and looked over at Charles, her eyebrow raised. If anyone was going to have more information on the station, it would be him.

Zasha loved salvage like her mother's borscht, but this station made her uneasy. Mysteriously intact but dark, and an obvious hole in the hull? There were no good explanations for this, and as much as she was curious to know what had happened, she was more interested in grabbing what she wanted and getting out.

"If you guys see anything mechanical in storage, if you have a chance, pass that along too if you wouldn't mind," Zasha asked, looking at the pair headed there. "Some of these ships don't exactly store the right stuff in the right places, so it's possible that there's some quality mechanics in storage because they didn't know better or there just wasn't room. Anything we can't use will probably sell for a pretty penny at the right shipyard. Especially if it's one of the many parts hard to get hold of because the Alliance hoards the good stuff."

She would have to bring a few tools, just in case she had to detach something from the engine itself. Part of her hoped the engine was in sad disrepair, because cannibalizing a good engine was always shameful. She had no real objections, scavenging was a part of life in this business, but she'd still rather leave an engine intact than tear into it, given the choice. It was certainly likely that this station's engine had no parts in common with the Qi but it was hard to tell without actually seeing it. The military grade engines about the Qi took some odd parts that she wasn't exactly familiar with nor had replacements for, so she couldn't turn up her nose at taking any from the station engine.

Looking at the map, she noted that Engineering was close to where they would be docking. Hopefully that meant she could get everything she wanted aboard before something... unexpected happened. Zasha didn't care what the readings had said, she was taking at least her guns to the station. She couldn't shoot a virus, this was true, but if there was something else on that station she didn't want to be caught unarmed.

Charles sighed, taking this as his clue to speak to the gathered people. "When I stole the files relating to- yes, I stole files relating to an alliance station, how else do you imagine I convinced the Captain to allow me aboard? When I stole the files, the access was heavily restricted; even on my access, which, as an Alliance Operative at the time, was quite high, I could only read a small section. All it stated was that this was a former refueling platform for aiding the suppression of rebellions in the area, and that it was shut down due to various irrelevant reasons. Problem is, it was dropped under bureaucracy, as the Captain said, and never decommisioned." Charles gave a rare upwards tug of his mouth at this.

"Supposedly. However, the Alliance has a tendency to bury its past in deception, even for its most trusted personell, and thus we're unfortunately going in quite blind. Needless to say, carrying weaponry along into the station is certainly a proactive decision. These old stations are notorious for their overzealous automated security systems, and if the reactor is still online, the emplacement guns are too."

With this finished, he crossed his arms and nodded to the Captain to resume.

"So let me get this straight. We are going to a highly classified Alliance station, that has gone dark, has a hull breach, and no sigh of life... but appears to still be operational? And to top it off we not even sure how good of a pay day this is going to be? Gao Guhn! Because, no offence captain, but this doesn't have bad idea written all over it. But your the captain, so do we at less have a solid dock or am I doing a hard manual dock?" Monty hated everything about this trip so far but he had to get back into the black and this trip he hoped would lead to a payday he desperately needs. He then turned to Harry, "So friend, you ready for this simple routin job?" The thought of hitting this station with an agent who "stole" this information, and a Àomàn suit, really mad him uneasy. But this wasn't his first messed up mission, though this one at less wouldn't end with as much..."collateral damage" and "acceptable losses". With that said he adjusted his balaclava and whispered to himself, "Burn, burn until you see black. Black as night, cold as the grave, only there will I find my place and my peace."

Harry looked at the map carefully. He looked up again once the pilot had spoken to him. "Well if you ask me, just by looking at this map I can see a number of obvious choke-points." Mason pointed towards the corridors that led to the main command area. "It seems strange for an alliance outpost to be abandoned so far from, well anywhere really. Normally the Alliance doesn't just leave these things floating around for people like us to come find. I'd have expected our alliance operative here to know that. Maybe he knows more than I do about this facility. Maybe he knows exactly what's going on with it." Mason glared at the operative looking for a reaction.

"In any case I'd take my chances with a plague before an alliance trap, you can out run a plague. Alliance bullets on the other hand. Significantly harder to avoid." Mason shrugged his shoulders at the pilot and then reached behind his back. Underneath his suit jacket, tucked away inside is pants was a small revolver. He pulled it out and spun the cylinder slowly. "I wouldn't go in unarmed anyway. I'm sure this floating metal box we're about to board can withstand a few bullet holes before succumbing to an explosive decompression" Mason smiled and placed the revolver back from whence it came

Charles narrowed his eyes at the two men.

"If I wanted to kill you, you would currently be indisposed to give me such hostility because you would be dead."

He scratched his chin briefly, reorganizing his thoughts as he looked off into space, and then resumed.

"There IS a potential issue, however. If the power is still online, chances are that the stationboard Artificial Intelligence is as well. All high-profile stations are equipped with them to facilitate basic functions such as door control, atmosphere levels, defenses, etcetera. In event of a disaster disabling all command crew, they are also able to assume control of the station. It most probably will not be amused by intruders, but... Captain, you mentioned you had interesting weaponry of sorts aboard the ship. Might an EMP bomb count among them?"

Ju Min’s brown knit a picture of frustration. "Did any of you think you were going into this venture unarmed?" The ire was dusted over her voice. What kind of crew had she taken on?

"Ta Ma Dah, I don’t sleep unarmed. I wouldn’t expect any of you to be unarmed on this run. I’m well aware that this isn’t a venture without risk, and if you don’t want to be caught up in this kind of business then we’ll drop you off at the next safe port." She sighed. It obviously wasn’t going to be easy to justify this kind of risk, especially to a brand new crew. It wasn’t the best first mission, she’d prefer a simple smuggling gig or maybe a salvage run without this extra layer of mystery and questions.

"You’ll notice that I’ve made sure we’re near the exits, I’m taking Charles with me, and we’ll be next to the emergency exit. If something goes south, none of us are more than three minutes from an out, which should give enough time to escape even if the station starts to decompress." It was always a concern when dealing with run-down stations. Decompression happened, and it was never something you wanted, but you had to be prepared for it.

"We should be able to dock normally, the bay is still intact and stable. After breakfast we’ll want to hail the station, which should also tell us if there’s an AI keeping everything ticking along on the station. Right now this is all the information we’ve got, I’ll be sure to keep you guys updated on the status." She retracted the screen and settled herself down in her own chair.

Monty nodded at 'the captain, "Ku, and captain, I didn't think you would send us in unarmed. But in the mean time if we are dismissed I will check my gear and make sure we are ready to dock. If you need me I'll be on the bridge." With that he stood up making his way to his room were he grabbed his rifle and headed to the bridge. Once there he sat at the controls and started programing in a few escape routes just in case things go south all he would have to do is start the ship and go. After making sure the ship is ready he started cleaning his guns, insuring they are ready to go. "Wonder if my 'partner' will come up for a talk. Also wonder how good or long this job will be before everything goes Gon Beh." he said as he cleaned his rifle.

Zasha listened to the conversations around her, wondering if the AI was as persnickety as some she'd heard about. Granted, the only experience she'd had was those stories, although she could fix the insides and outsides of a computer she didn't know what she'd do with one that talked back. How did you even get an Alliance AI to cooperate? Threats? Bribes? Although what you'd bribe an AI with, she didn't know, although she bet she might be able to come up with some kind of mechanical part that involved vodka, given enough time, but this trip was nowhere near so leisurely, as much as she'd love to play around with a real AI. On the contrary, speed was of the essence here, given how uncertain the situation was, so she wouldn't be experimenting aboard.

A normal docking was at least a good sign. "Understood, Captain. I'll grab my tools after breakfast and be ready for anything, which hopefully won't include anything... too shiang jing." If they absolutely needed a bomb she might be able to whip one up, but ones of the EMP variety required a bit more time. She didn't want to suggest it in case an EMP took out critical systems and made the station more dangerous, better if she wasn't the one to make that call if things went horribly wrong. Besides, she needed more time and certain parts to make an EMP work, assuming one wasn't already available on the Qi. She had no idea what was loaded up for weapons, hadn't gotten that far yet in her inspections, and she'd assumed that since the mechanisms that fired them were working fine that the rest was not as important.

"But in case a quick exit becomes necessary, I've already confirmed that the engines should be fine with a sudden burn out into the Black," she confirmed, in case the Captain didn't already know, "and I will try to finish quickly and get back to the engine room so that if we do have to get out and something happens with the engine, I can fix it as it happens."

"Captain, something has occured to me. Do you stow EVA suits aboard the ship? If not, an opportunity is present in the EVA storage module, which, according to the schematics is located deep within Engineering, close to the external ship repair bay." Charles waved his hand in the air to somehow demonstrate the point.

"The ORION-class suit I am wearing is designed to be able to withstand hard vacuum and keep the wearer alive for approximately ten minutes, so I should be fine in event of decompression. It also features a very short-range tracker, normally used to coordinate with Alliance combat evacuation shuttles. I was prudent enough to disable it, but I could re-enable it and Ms. Venediktov could attune it to a frequency the Qi is operating on. I assume someone will be left behind on the bridge as overwatch?"

Ju Min grimaced. Extra-Vehicular Activity suits. Standard on many military vessels, and very, very handy for salvage missions. And also very, very, very expensive. Not the sort of expense one could justify for a civilian ship though, so they were nearly impossible to get your hands on unless you had the right contacts. "Yeah, we have one. It’s an Andromeda-class. Nothing fancy, and not heavily armored at all. It’s pretty much exclusively for hull-repairs ." If this station had any it would put her in the fortunate position of having to decide whether to fence the suit, or keep it for herself. Though, in all likelihood anything the engineering wing had would be bare-bones. The combat-heavy stuff was probably in the security wing. Maybe if they had time she could try to scrounge some salvage from that wing after they were all sure the place was secure, maybe then.
"As for someone to stay on the ship, our best candidate is currently Kiran. And since I can’t trust him to make pancakes properly, I don’t trust him with run of my ship."



“They’re called ‘crepes’, Ju Min.” Kiran rolled his eyes as he stepped into the room, carrying a plate stacked with thin, misshapen crepes. He was wearing an utterly useless and un-marred white apron.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t have any baking powder. These are basically flour held together with, eggs, milk, and a bit of vanilla. I could have made regular pancakes, but someone can’t shop for supplies.” He set the plate down in the middle of the table, taking a few off the top for himself, then slid into a chair of his own.

“I figured I owed you, Zasha.” He flashed her a smile as he rolled one of the crepes and cut it into slices that could be eaten respectably. “Don't worry they're perfectly safe, just cheap and easy to make. I got the recipe from this gorgeous blonde beefcake name Yakob when I was at the Academy.”