The Black, The 'Verse, Firefly and Serenity

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.”

Zasha took a crepe and stuck a fork into it eagerly. "This is great!" she exclaimed around a mouthful. "Not that I'm not grateful," she added once her mouth was clear, "But you don't owe me anything." She took another and ate it just as quickly, too hungry and fascinated with the new flavor to slow down and savor it.

She hadn't exactly had much experience with fancy food, but if this was anything like what rich people ate, maybe she should have looked into Companion training. After a moment, she snorted softly to herself and kept eating. That would not have worked out in any way. Being a Companion required tact, charm, and the ability to look good in expensive dresses, and those were precisely her own weak points. Speaking of expensive things, though, she wondered how the loot was split up among the crew. Most Captains she'd known sold the loot and took a healthy cut off the top before distributing it to the crew. Others had a sort of sliding scale, everyone getting a percentage depending on their role and length of time spend on board. It was hardly something to bring up over dinner, but she'd have to ask sometime. It was hardly going to be a "finders keepers" situation.

If Kiran were to stay on the ship, she just hoped he didn't mess around with anything mechanical. Heaven knows what the pretty idiot--or so he liked to pretend he was, she wasn't sure--would do to the beautiful Qi. And then the horrible things she'd have to do to him in exchange, sneaky of course as to not upset the Captain.

Montgomery set his rifle to the side after cleaning it and started a scan. A few moments later the display flashes as the scan end. He read it out loud manly to himself but loud enough for the captain to hear. "Unknown classified gas in the ventilation. No motion or life signs, great, so death trap, fun. Time to run a bypass of the docking controls, a quick pilots override and I'm in. Though the station is on low power I now have a control of the docks." As he said this he worked the controls. Once done he setup a backdoor into the system just in case and setup a few backup programs should anyone get any ideas. "Captain, course plotted and laid in, docks prepped. Standing by ma'am."

Charles snapped out of his deep stupor to nod a farewell to the other still in the mess hall before stepping out to hail the elevator to the bridge.

As he waited, he tried to picture the previous use of such a vessel as the Qi, for surely a mere smuggler-captain wouldn't be able to acquire one like this straight off the line. Had she been an atrittion attacker during the War? A blockade runner? Something entirely different?

And yet, it still looked quite pristi-

His thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of the elevator, which he stepped into as soon as the doors opened.

After a quiet ride, he stepped out to be greeted by a stunning view of a station in tatters.

The Tycho-class Stationary Research Platform was always a rudimentary, though efficient design. The Alliance had standardised it for practically any station involved in researching under-the-radar matters. The fact that this one was hidden deep within a nebula marked as "hazardous due to extreme debris" certainly helped the concealment.

Looked like concealment didn't help it any.

"You required me, Captain?"

Zasha started to clean up, wondering if the scans had been fruitful. She'd eaten so many crepes that it was almost hard to move, but she knew her metabolism would take care of that quickly and she'd be able to crawl around the station with her usual lithe ingenuity.

"Have you noticed any of the supplementary systems acting up recently?" Zasha asked as she started to wash the dishes. "I haven't done a complete examination of all the mechanics on the Qi yet, it's just not possible so soon, but if I need to keep an eye out for something else that doesn't pertain to the main engines I'd like to know in advance."

She paused. It was probably a good idea to check the EVA suit to make sure everything was working correctly, just in case something went wrong on the station, so she started to hurry. Small fingers stacked, cleaned, wiped, and had the kitchen to rights in no time at all.

"Sorry to rush off," she said as she walked quickly out, "but I want to do a few more checks before we go aboard. I'm not sure what to expect from the station, so I want to cover all my bases."

Ju Min rolled her eyes. Typical Alliance, what else did he expect her to have? Multiple EVA suits, a mining probe, sure, it’d be nice to have a cook too, but there were certain things that a smuggler’s salary did not permit one to keep on board.

"Chuck, this isn’t the Alliance. We don’t have mining probes on standby here." She bit her thumb. It wasn’t going to be worth risking exposing everyone to whatever this gas was. She counted off on her fingers for a moment. She might have just enough. Barely. Kiran, Zasha, Charles, Monty, Herself. She might have just enough of them.

"We’ll use the SCBAs. I have a few kicking around the ship." She wasn’t entirely sure about putting this many resources into a new crew, but she wasn’t going to have a crew if she didn’t.

"I’ll have them ready at the airlock. Monty, dock the Qi, but keep the airlock sealed until we’re all ready to go." She stepped off the Bridge and headed for the elevator.

Zasha went over the suit carefully, checking for even the smallest rip that could mean death to whoever was unlucky enough to be stuck in the black with it.

"Captain, I've checked the EVA suit, is there any other equipment we'll use on board that I should take a gander at?" She sent over the comm, drumming her fingers against her pants. There wasn't much else to do, other than putter around and quadruple check all the things she'd already gone over thoroughly. Of course another check was never wasted, but she did prefer to be useful.

Picking up a stray duffel bag, she examined it as well and decided it was good enough to carry whatever she needed from the other ship, and if necessary, she could simply leave it behind. New supplies were all well and good, but survival was of premiere importance. If she had to, she'd leave it and drag one of her fellow crew members instead off the station--she was stronger than she looked, and most Captains appreciated it when there was no one left behind to die alone in the dark. Unless you were on one of those rough ships were it was everyone for themselves, but she tried to stay away from those. Hopefully the Qi was crewed by people who actually gave a shit about everyone else.