Main Deck-Bow

"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."

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.

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?"

Kiran grinned through his own mouthfuls of food. He always did enjoy cooking, though he did have more experience cooking breakfasts.

“That's what I told Yakob. He had a million ways to prepare them. Jam, syrup, sugar, lemon. I swear the man could eat these crepes for a month without repeating a topping.” He gave a bit of a wistful sigh. Yakob had been a good friend, and an excellent person to share a room with. They had graduated together, and studied many things together. Realizing he was staring off into space he blushed briefly and shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

“The Academy is really a world of it's own.” He chuckled, pushing the last few pieces of his crepe around the plate absentmindedly. “Practically no one makes it out of the dorms with their heterosexuality intact...” His face settled back into his wicked smirk. Good times...