Bridge

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.

Ju Min rolled her eyes at Kiran’s words. Supply shopping indeed. From the one who’d been drunk and sobbing while she was out looking for a crew to keep her ship in the air. She exhaled sharply and stood up. She wasn’t about to start another shouting match in front of the crew.

"I’ll be on the bridge. We’ll try and get more information on the station, if we get anything interesting I’ll call you guys up. Otherwise, get yourself ready, we’ll be hitting the dock in about two hours." She turned and stalked off to the elevator. Once she was safely on the bridge, she let out a steadying breath.

"Monty, run a scan on the station’s systems, see if you can get an idea of what’s still running ." She took her position again above the bridge. It felt good to be standing there, though it was still a little strange to be there alone. Strange, but good.

"Hold on the docking for a second..." She bit her lip nervously. This was going to be another complication.

She frowned she pulled the report up on her watch. Classified. This wasn’t an Alliance vessel and the Civilian databases had been overwritten years ago. If this gas was coming up as classified then it meant none of her databases had it. This was some serious shit. Her breath sighed out in a terse hiss.

"Any idea what this shit could be Monty?" She grit her teeth. This place was getting more and more suspicious. She opened a communications panel to the mess hall. "Charles. I need you on the Bridge as soon as you’re ready." She wasn’t going to tip her hand to this guy just yet. If this was a deathtrap, she wasn’t sure what he’d do when he got caught in it.

Ju Min watched as the Agent stepped off the elevator. She watched him carefully, noting the weight of his steps and how he held himself on the elevator. It'd been a week now, less time than she'd told him, but Zasha had a good grip on the engines and nothing had gone wrong. Well, until now. Seemed like all the shit had waited on the Station for her. She should have been suspicious when things were going well. Things never went right, the only constant was that something was always going to go wrong.

"Yeah, is there anything else you want to tell me about this station?" Suspicion seeped into her voice, tainting it with a hint of venom. "Because there's a gas in the systems that isn't in any of my databases and you have thirty seconds to explain to me what the hell is going on here."

No signs of life, barely any damage, and now some unknowable gas. This station better pay out in spades at this point. Simple salvage mission, her ass.

Charles snapped his attention away from the station to the Captain staring daggers at him.

"This facility is Installation TYCHO-GPCR-054. The GPCR stands for "General-Purpose Clandestine Research"; that means you can expect practically anything within, because the facility was never custom-modified for something such as bioweaponry or robotics. Their research field would depend on what the Alliance demanded, and if an odd gas is floating about, they were most probably tasked with chemical weapons research shortly before shutdown."

He stepped a little closer to the window, crossing his arms.

"First, I'd recommend sending down a simple mining probe for an atmospheric scan. Noting the chemical composition would be a good start. Second, the electrics aboar the station seem to still be functioning in most sectors. The Tycho-class stations are typically equipped with a rudimentary artificial intelligence for handling simplicities from door control to security systems. If it is still operating, it will be a significant nuisance at best and a danger at worst."