Farvis search the shuttle for anything useful he could take but came up empty. The emergency supply kit contained a bottle of brandy and some protein bars, but there was no sign of the first aid kit or the emergency laser pistol that was supposed to be there. It was possible they stripped all of the emergency weaponry from the shuttle before the mission to keep it from the dangerous criminals they were loading on board, but he doubted they were that competent. It was much more likely that some idiot was using the shuttle to hook up with female officers and was too busy in his pursuits to think about restocking anything but the food and alcohol.

He stood up as he felt the umbilical connect and waited to leave, preferring to keep the angry cyborg in front of him he he wouldn't literally stab him in the back. He saw Marga eying the cockpit and knew what must be going through her head. He knew because the same thought had already went through his head dispute his inept piloting skills and been discarded. "There are much better prizes than a military shuttle." he whispered beside her ear. "You just need to wait a few hours." Hopefully she wouldn't take the shuttle. That would mean losing a very valuable ally in the operation he had planned.

Farvis search the shuttle for anything useful he could take but came up empty. The emergency supply kit contained a bottle of brandy and some protein bars, but there was no sign of the first aid kit or the emergency laser pistol that was supposed to be there.

As he sat counting the seconds, his eyes fixed firmly on the long-range scanners as the asteroid field loomed ever closer Felix spotted the emergency alarm fire up. Immediately his finger was on the intercom and he began screaming down the line, "Whoever's messing with my gear, get your hands off! Any supplies you're authorised to use can be found in the storage compartment beside the airlock, everything else has been earmarked for a highly confidential, need-to-know only mission we have lined up after I've dropped you bozos off."

With that the pilot sat back in his seat, fretting whether the antique bottle of brandy he'd managed to procure for his 'confidential mission' with Ensign Ballard would still be there after the party left. And that her husband, his CO, wouldn't find out about the need-to-know docking maneuvers he had planned for her.

"I wear this armour not for show, Mez. Remove the medical officer and no one will be getting off her alive. Not even Hundred." @DJAtomika

Mez was impressed by his counter threat. Though it wasn't directed entirely at him, he could understand the underlying meaning to it, even if there wasn't one. "I wouldn't let Hundred hear you saying that. I have a feeling she'd beg to differ. As much fun as this is, though, we really should get going. 'Cause, y'know, there's the small matter of the incoming asteroid belt and our impending doom to worry about if you don't move your ass instead of blocking the doorway."

"Boys, boys, please. Let me get out a ruler and you two can settle this." @Bonjour xx

He hadn't felt Marga walk up behind him. He wasn't startled but more concerned that she could still do that to him. He rolled his eyes at her comment. "Well you won't be needing a ruler for mine, I'm sure you remember well enough. Give it an hour, though, and I doubt you'll need a ruler for his either, seeing as that's what you do best, am I right?" It was a cutting reply, probably unwarranted, but Mez had had enough of her games already. If she was going to act like a whore just to spite him, he was going to treat her like one.

With that, Mez decided to step past the Human Medic and into the umbilical, making sure not to touch the suited man. Sure, Mez was an asshole, but he sure as hell wasn't a hypocrite. He saw that Sevyn was waiting at the other end, seemingly puzzled with the access hatch that would lead them into the Lone Star. There wasn't any time to waste, they needed to get on that ship now or all of them would perish. Striding confidently toward the other end, Mez reached for his pistols, the ones given to him by Rasgrid. He held them out in front of him and aimed for the joints of the hatch, then he opened fire.

The barrage of plasma fire slammed into the metal hull of the Lone Star, at first it only seemed to harmlessly splash against it. But before long it became apparent that the rounds were melting away at the joints as there were now glowing holes left where the joints used to be. He changed his target towards the handle, a red lever that would undoubtedly operate a large metallic latch behind it. That too would succumb to the intense heat of his plasma-fire. A larger hole was left in the wake of his rounds and molten, metallic slag was now running down the side of the dreadnought. He'd made sure not to hit Sevyn at all but it would have been impossible for her not the feel the heat of his passing bullets.

By the time he'd finished firing, Mez had reached the end of the walkway, passing the Syndarin in the mean time. He stowed his right pistol, Osebon, at his side before grabbing the recently damaged hatch and ripping it from the rest of the ship, allowing it to clang loudly to the floor. He half-turned back towards the Syndarin and held up his remaining pistol, Ahael, before saying, "Super-heated Divine Energy, always does the trick." Mez then began climbing his way into the access hatch, making sure to scour the area ahead with his weapon. If those droids decided to make a return, Mez would turn them all to small piles of molten scrap.

The sudden shift in air pressure sent a wave of fetid, stale gas down the companionway as Mez yanked the airlock door open, and a heavy thunking sound could be heard from the inner hatch as some ancient mechanical safety feature quickly sealed the rest of the ship off from the breach, preventing any more air from escaping.

"Well I guess we're in. Quickly now, the asteroid field is coming."

Simon nodded in appreciation as Mez swiftly handled the issue of the door not opening. Superheated plasma definitely ate through metal, no matter how reinforced it was. He simply followed the Visipian in, his visor light shining a bright red cross on the floor and walls wherever he looked. It wasn't particularly bright; without power, probably not even emergency power judging from how long it'd been gone, the Lone Star's interior was completely pitch black, save for the light streaming in through the open airlock and whatever glowy pieces of equipment the team had. It was quiet, too quiet, but here he was: a galaxy first, the first team to ever set foot on the Lone Star ever since it disappeared a decade ago. If they weren't on such a clandestine mission, he was sure that the whole thing would've been covered by news casters all over the sector, if not the whole system. This was the sort of thing that corporations won and lost money over, that built fortunes or lost them…or something absurdly profound like that. All Simon had in mind was his mission.

Simon extended an arm and opened his hand, exposing the scanners built into the palm and fingers of his armour. Time to get a scope on what they were going to be dealing with.

"System, full environment scan. Optics, visual scan, identify key facilities."

With a soft bleep his armour got to working out their surroundings. A faint blue beam shot forth from his palm as he swept his hand slowly back and forth around the whole docking bay area, trying to take in as much information as he could, while his optics scanned and updated his heads-up display with key details; doors leading to unknown areas, potential hazards, along with any outstanding features within the bay that might've been of interest. The micro fans on his chest plate whirred softly away as they took in sample particulates from the air for sampling, while he panned his vision slowly across the entire bay, his optics scanning each nook and cranny, highlighting whatever was of interest in a pale blue outline, with details on what they were or where they led, if what was highlighted was a door. The full analysis took only a few seconds, and soon he had his samples taken and visual references gathered. Soon his armour would finish the physical analysis and it would give him the most important data he needed: could they breathe in here?

It was a conundrum.

How to open a door without the door handle. Or in this case an impossibly heavy and impossibly thick airlock that happened to have its wheel knocked off, either by the robots or hurtling debris. Sevyn could plug Jemini into the wheel socket and use the bot at a wheel, but when brought up to the drone the Syndarin was answered by a rapid succession of high pitched beeps and whirrs, followed by attempted mutilation by blowtorch.

That meant that the plan was a go. Before Sevyn even had the chance to reach over for the drone however, a barrage of plasma fire splashed against the door, melting away the joints of the airlock. Which meant someone has shot at the Lone Star

The Syndarin could only stare in horror, locking her magnetic boots reflexively against the sudden decompression. Luckily, that didn't happen, but the fetid stench coming from inside seemed to more than make up for it. Curious, as that meant there was a working atmosphere inside the ship, which meant that some power had to be operational which shouldn't have surprised Sevyn, really. Many ships were more than capable of running ten or more years without having to dock at any spaceport, provided they passed by the occasional gas giant every so often. Sure, minor systems would have broken down, but the ship itself would still have kept chugging.

But still, someone shot the Lone Star.

That also meant that whatever scanners the United Alliance Navy had used to scan the ship had either been tampered, damaged, or jammed somehow. Sevyn gave them all an almost equal split chance of probability, with extra points going toward jammed.

It was the Vespian.

But that was a discussion for another time because if the ship had power, that meant main protocols and subroutines were running, which meant an automatic bulkhead lockdown of their immediate surrounding section. While they certainly could blow through each and every one of them, the bulkheads would keep on shutting down and their progressed would be slowed immeasurably. Not to mention he shot at the Lone Star. Sevyn made her frustration known by ignoring everything the smug Vespian said to her, putting a hand to his helmet providing a direct communications channel and screamed, "WHAT. HAVE. YOU. DONE."

The Syndarin stormed off angrily and hurriedly, pushing past the medic man and with the help of Jemini, began working on unlocking the inner door before the umbilical detached and the laws of pressure would forcibly remove everyone far, far away from the Lone Star and presumably into the then-onrushing asteroids. All without blowing the inner airlock to absolute shit, of course.

@DJAtomika "System, full environment scan. Optics, visual scan, identify key facilities."

The initial scan results were, without a doubt, less than ideal. The plating around the airlock chamber was heavy enough to block a wider ranged scan but inside the compartment there was a distinct lack of anything. Apart from a few slight biological traces, which were quickly dying off due to the exposure to vacuum, the room seemed as though it had been thoroughly cleared out well before the party had arrived. Most likely by the Lone Star's original crew.

As the beam played over the walls it quickly noted over a dozen storage lockers lining each of the airlock's walls. All apart from one hung open, their contents missing, presumably also removed purposefully many years before. The remaining locker seemed to have been sealed, the edges of its frame melted and blistered.

The only other entrance from the chamber was another airlock hatch set into the opposite wall from the external one through which the party were now beginning to board. The scan showed the door had been mechanically locked down, heavy bars within the walls clamping it closed to prevent any loss of atmosphere due to the detected hull breach. With a beep the scanner lit up a panel beside the hatch which seemed to be some sort of manual override, but overriding what the scanner couldn't tell.

---

With the shuttle now secured to the larger vessel Felix's job had become a whole lot easier, but with the short-range scanner now pinging with an alarming regularity as new asteroid fragments were showing up in close proximity he didn't have time to relax. Thumbing open the external commlink he raised as many of his passengers as he could, "Hate to break this to you guys but if you don't get a move on I'm gonna have to blow this popsicle stand with or without you."

Almost as if on cue a small pebble tapped against the viewport in front of the pilot, leaving a small but very definite scratch in his otherwise unspoilt panorama. "And I mean like right now!"

34

The universe did not, as some ancient, Caucasoid humans maintained abhor a vacuum. The universe loved multiplicity. On the countless worlds with high chemical complexity life flourished. Billions of complex reactions occurring in billions of discrete organisms across billions of planets. Yet, for all it's myriad myriads, life had been found, by the species with the perspective to see it play out across the cosmos, to follow patterns. Sapience followed ambulation and generalization of physiology, predator-prey relationships were known on every planet, and the simplest forms of life were often the real victors by most measures of special success. The Star's repair organisms were not the victors in simplicity or sapience. They were the prey, the Dust played the predator. What remained of the bots floated listlessly into space or clung, empty, insectile husks to the hide of the Lone Star.

32

Hundred basked in the still quiet. The plasma fire had stopped long before the fight. The Syndari had slithered into the airlock before the shuttle had connected. The lack of cohesion was noted. Hundred frowned. Something struck the hull a couple of meters from where she stood. She looked at the little cloud of dust that burst from the impact. The Dust tasted it. Iron. Nickel. A meteorite, dissolved by the force of it's impact. Hundred looked back up at the stars. The storm was here.

31

She was still keeping count. Her numbers never lied and were infrequently incorrect. She had downloaded the telemetry data from the shuttles scanners, they were already within the edge of the MAC zone. If the shuttle did not leave immediately it's chance of clearing the cloud dropped geometrically.

28

"Pilot, your ship has a 67% chance of catastrophic failure before leaving the operation zone if you have not disengaged connection to the Star and made an optimal exit trajectory in the next...27 seconds. You know this. You should disengage. Seal the airlock. Crew lose to exposure is collateral." She spoke across the same wide beam as he had transmitted from, her fellow contractors should know that their negligence could well cost them their lives.

24

Hundred focused back upon the hull of the Star. By the time the shuttle could clear the airlock there would be too little time to enter and seal the bulkhead. She could not enter through the shuttles passenger airlock in time. One option would trap her on the shuttle. The other would leave the airlock bay potentially exposed to debris impact from the field. The shuttle was essential for extraction. The crew in the airlock...growing less essential in her estimation, but she still estimated needing them to complete her objectives. Hundred's options narrowed. So did her eyes.

23

The remaining dust blades flooded back towards her, her hands danced through the air, nano-carbons fragmented and spun into ribbons around her, orienting themselves around her, plunging her efforts into the hull, the ribbons conformed to the hull plate beneath her, spinning and slicing into the seams, much as the Star's bots had done less efficiently before.

22

She would not complete her intent before the MAC saturation point hit. She did not have the data to know her chances at that point. She did really know her chances now. The thermal radiation around her increased precipitously from the smoldering fragments of plasteel sparking from the grooves she had cut in the plating, joining the detritus from the bots above. She never had enough data. Nothing was ever completely certain. Her numbers could be off. There inlay hope, and the phantom of choice and will. That angered Hundred even more than her compatriots. Incomplete data. Imperfect measurements. Sloppy. Fucking. Methodology. Hundred snarled, the glow the from molten metal dribbling from her furrows glinting off her teeth. The universe was a mess and it was about to crush her with that fact. In spite of the flurry of motion distracting her peripheral senses she noticed another burst of iron and nickel rebound off the plate she was working on. No the universe did not abhor a vacuum. But it loved filling it with shit.

20.

"Pilot, your ship has a 67% chance of catastrophic failure before leaving the operation zone if you have not disengaged connection to the Star and made an optimal exit trajectory in the next...27 seconds. You know this. You should disengage."

"Don't worry, I'm already playing the Countdown theme over here. Can't just dump the boarding party and run without at least giving them a chance to get the job done, otherwise I'll be toasted by the Admiralty rather than some useless chunk of rock." Felix replied back testily, his hands hovering over the control panel ready to break free the instant he got the all clear, or when the clock ran out.

The light pattering sound on the shuttle's hull almost reminded him of the rainstorm back at home, except those storms couldn't suddenly change into a maelstrom of deadly metal fragments at a moment's notice. He should've been gone well before the storm reached them, and unless he broke away soon he'd never make it clear in time.

"Well you won't be needing a ruler for mine, I'm sure you remember well enough. Give it an hour, though, and I doubt you'll need a ruler for his either, seeing as that's what you do best, am I right?” @Kalas

Marga’s face froze for a second, before her left eye gave an involuntary twitched and her expression morphed from one of smugness into one of sheer vexation. For a split second she was tempted to retort back the she’d need the magnifying spectrum on her googles, but the childish response died in her throat before it even had a half decent chance of being voiced. The biting comment didn’t perturb her as much as the fact that Mez could still call her out on her shit when she was being full of herself; that he could still tell when her behaviour was an act she put on. Besides her former paramour, there were only two other beings which had ever been able to tell when Marga was being fake, when her actions and words were part of a performance meant to conceal something. Those two individuals were her brother and her mother. With the exception of Mez for one short stage in her life, Marga had never been closer to another person than she was to her brother. Her mother however was another matter. While her brother knew how to read her demeanour from years of practice from raising her from childhood and then working alongside her when she became an adult, Marga’s estranged mother instinctively knew when her daughter's conduct was a sham, a pre tense that was filled with posturing. But they shared the same blood as her, something therefore bound them together, connected them. How Mez could tell performance from actuality was still unknown to her. Even back when he was no more to her than a possible fling, someone to waste a few hours with between the sheets, to escape from reality for a short while before she had to head back to the Armada and deal with a bunch of arseholes who gave her the absolute minimum respect they could get away with without receiving any punishment, Mez had been able to call her out on her shit. When she’d entered that bar all that time ago and clocked Mez standing near the bar nursing a drink, she had sauntered over to the handsome stranger, full of cockiness and confidence, her seductrice mask had just automatically fallen into place. Seduction was a game and Marga always won. Seduction was about manipulation and control. Seduction was power. And then that bastard had seen right through her facade and knocked her whole world off its axis. Suddenly it was a situation that Marga couldn’t control, where there were unknowns that she couldn’t anticipate. Suddenly she was unsure of herself. The feeling had blind-sided her then, and it had the exact same effect on her now.

Uncertainty got you killed. Uncertainty made you vulnerable. Uncertainty led to failure. It was an emotion Marga couldn’t afford. She had fought tooth and nail for her position in the Armada and she knew that all it would take was one slight crack in her metaphorical armour and it would all be wrenched from her grasp. She worked with thugs, ruffians and murderers. If she gave in to them even a single inch, they would see her as a weak link. Weak links were disposed of - or worse. Yes, Marga knew there were worse things that could happen to her than death or mutiny at the hands of the outfit of pirates. And hence the need for her mask and if she had to be perceived as a bitch to maintain it, so be it. Until she had met Mez, Marga had been positive that her mask was flawless. With the exception of family, no one had ever seen through it before. It had taken her several weeks to realise that instead of annoyance at having been found out, what she actually felt was pleased. The ramifications of that self-discovery was what had eventually sent her right back to Mez.

Standing just inside of the Navy shuttle, Marga ground her thoughts to a halt. Her mind had a strong tendency to wonder, her emotions getting the better of her. But now wasn’t the time to reminisce on such things. Marga had a decision to make. With the astroid field closing in on them within the next thirty seconds, the thief knew she didn’t have the necessary piloting skills to make a successful getaway without being torn to shreds. As Marga eyed the umbilical tunnel, her attention was caught by the only unopened locker on the other side of the Lone Star’s docking entrance.

Locked. Marga liked things that were locked. It meant someone had taken the time to place something they valued into the locker, box, vault, etc to keep it safe. People regarded items differently - as they said, one man’s rubbish is another man’s gold. Marga felt a familiar tingle starting at the tips of her long, slender fingers. The more she pondered the mystery that was the Lone Star, she further up her hands and arms the sensation traveled. Locked. In its essence, the dreadnought was one massive locked box… And Marga had never been able to resist peeking inside a locked box. So, despite her reservations, the thief turned back to where she had spied a set of naval issue environmental suits, quickly slid into it, placed the helmet over her head, grabbed a pair of small laser-beam guns, then turned and put one foot in front of the other and walked down the connecting tunnel and stepped into the Lone Star.

Farvis opened the storage locker and grabbed a shotgun and several extra rounds, then put on a space suit and comm system from the same locker. The medical suit he was wearing could withstand the pressure change and had its own air processing system, but it lacked the ability to heat itself, making it of limited use as a space suit. He activated the force field helmet on his medical suit for extra protection and made his way across the umbilical. He was contemplating how to get the inner hatch open when someone decided to just melt the hinges with a plasma weapon. "Are you just going to keep melting through every locked door?" he asked. "We need to equalize pressure in here. Not all of us can survive indefinitely in the vacuum of space, you know. Everyone needs to get inside so that we can reseal the door behind us, probably by welding in in place with more plasma fire."

He entered the room they had just blown there way into, pushing his way past the others if he had to, and went over to the only locker that hadn't been ransacked yet, probably because of the damage to it. To get it open, though, he was going to have to damage it even more. Hopefully it was built like most lockers, and only made of thin metal, otherwise this would hurt.

He increased his adrenaline level to Alpha-state levels and punched the center of the locker door. Hopefully the door would bend enough to break whatever minor welding the heat damage had caused and break the locker open.

He increased his adrenaline level to Alpha-state levels and punched the center of the locker door. Hopefully the door would bend enough to break whatever minor welding the heat damage had caused and break the locker open.

As soon as Farvis's hand slammed through the thin metal door of the locker he felt sharp claws grabbing at his wrist, cutting easily through his space suit but catching on his sterile suit beneath. Luckily the added protection from the outer armour was enough to prevent any worse damage, but he could still feel the sharp tine sawing its way through the nano-tube reinforced material far more quickly than a conventional blade should be able to.

Jemini had the good sense to stay quiet as the Syndarin mentally screamed in her head as she worked desperately to open the door. Her emotions were playing too much with the adrenaline she depended on to stay calm and cool in high tense situations such as this, though usually she had a team behind her back that she could trust and she often had the blessing of being blissfully unaware of the true precariousness of her situations.

Unfortunately the misfits Sevyn had found herself with had no respect or no knowledge of how ships were constructed (at least the mercenaries asked her first if it was safe to blow something up), were too focused on baiting and antagonizing each other rather than focusing on the mission (at least the mercenaries she was with waited until after the job was done), psychopathic killers (at least the mercen... well okay her people were essentially a race of repressed psychopaths so she didn't really have anything to counter for this one), or some ungodly combination of all three.

She also added "sticking hands into places they shouldn't be" to the list, judging from the sounds behind her, though she admitted that she fell amazingly well into that category.

The pilot announcing that he had to leave soon and fast did nothing to help Sevyn's nerves, pounding at the impossible door once in frustration. The nearby console beeped on almost immediately after. Sevyn briefly entertained the possibly of her being capable of great and powerful technomagic before jumping onto the console and began working furiously to activate the manual override. Unfortunately the flashy user-friendly interface shut down the moment the Syndarin touched the screen which made her think of what terrible gifts she was now in control of before the screen rebooted back on, only to now show the base code.

The language the code was written in had been cutting edge when the Lone Star was first built, written specifically for it if Sevyn remembered correctly, and it was so impossibly difficult to work with that it was never released to the general public. In fact it still wasn't, and is only used in the most top of the line military software. Of course that didn't stop Sevyn from getting her grubby little hands on it and while programming certainly wasn't her best skill, she sure as hell didn't want to be blown out of the airlock.

Although, perhaps it didn't bode well when Sevyn realized she still had trouble working with the code and she didn't exactly know what she was manually overriding.

A grinding howl echoed through the shuttle and the status board lit up with warnings as Felix swore loudly into his mike. "Oh shit! Whatever you guys are doing you'd better hurry up. One of the big rocks just grazed my starboard engine pod and almost killed us all!"

Marga walked passed Farvis as he approached the locker that looked welded shut. As curious as she was to its contents, she figured she'd let Farvis take the risk of opening it. Then if she liked what was inside, she'd just take it - well, eventually anyway.

The special environmental suit she had taken from the shuttle felt strange on her person. Unused to wearing such things as they tended to slow one down and limit one’s abilities, Marga hoped there would be enough power left in the ship to enable them to activate the basic life support functions. She did note however, that the grip the suit allowed her to maintain on the floor was a point in its favour. The thief was quietly adjusting her small taser gun onto the outside of her suit and pondering how they were going to get the Gygan inside the Lone Star with them when she spotted the Syndarian who had introduced herself as Seyvn Spades standing in front of a console clearly meant for opening the next door. Having preformed a bit of work in that neck of the woods before, Marga had heard of Sevyn’s impressive reputation as a pilot and made a mental note to ask for some pointers from her once this was all over. For now though, Marga knew there were more pressing matters to attend to - like the fact that they were all about to become space mush in under thirty seconds if they didn’t open the aforementioned door.

“Not to brag, but codes, algorithms and cracking them are sort of my thing, love,” Marga said, coming to stand next to the Syndarian. “Right, let’s see what we’re dealing with."

Farvis felt something cut through the wrist of his space suit at rub against the wrist of his medical suit. In the slowed down time of Alpha state he was able to pull his hand out before it could do anything more. He then drew his shotgun and fired three times into the hole, the motion of the shotgun taking him several seconds to pump the next shell into the firing chamber as he perceived it. After he fired it he pulled himself out of the Alpha state so that he wouldn't wear himself out any more, abut kept the gun trained on the hole.

"Something's in there." he said, "It felt like some creature tried to cut my hand off."

Simon merely watched as his teammates bumbled around like plebs. At least Mez and Hundred has some sense of what was going on and they were efficient. Everyone else though? He didn't even know why they needed this many people for one lousy retrieval mission. A pilot, sure, but two pilots? And two doctors too? Two combat types as well, that was to be expected, which left the only odd one out being the prissy bitch that was Marga.

Hmm. The prospect of sharing the mission with someone like her irked him, but then again he had had to work with prissy bitch interns before on Mars. That backwater colony had the notorious rep for being the one place that nearly every off-world med school sent bad interns. He'd get used to it.

For now, he simply focused on the tasks at hand. With the initial analysis of the inner airlock holding room done, and everything safe except for the rapid lack of air and heat, he was done with his safety checks. But when he approached the lockers he saw Farvis punch the only closed one through the door, then withdraw his hand just as abruptly. His optics noted the claw marks that had eaten through the outer suit and almost through the inner, and he gently pushed Farvis aside after he'd sufficiently vented his shotgun-based anger into the locker.

"Stand aside, let me scan this. Optics, scan and x-ray."

He slowly panned his vision from the top to the bottom of the locker, unsure of what he'd find past the three gaping holes in the locker door.

@DJAtomika"Stand aside, let me scan this. Optics, scan and x-ray."

As the beam shone through the holes in the locker door the heads-up display began to flicker between two very different readings. One moment it reported a lifeform, the next a piece of equipment. Finally the computer intelligence admitted that it didn't know what to make of what it was seeing and flashed up a message reading '[[INCONCLUSIVE]]', followed by a long list of all the data points it had been able to gather.

Luckily for Simon he wouldn't have to wait too long for more information to work with as a set of glistening, metallic blades reached out from inside the largest hole and began to claw at the edges, slowly widening the breach as thick purple ichor seeped from inside.

---

Grabbing his helmet and quickly locking it into place JR quickly made his way over to the airlock, slamming his hand on the door control to cycle the outer door open. He glanced over at the weapon's rack but all he could see were some older pattern shotguns and pistols, no grenades or other gear which could help bolster his own gear, so without wasting another second he boosted down the umbilical, letting the low gravity float him towards the Lone Star's airlock chamber.

Halfway along the passage he saw something shoot passed his faceplate and as he drifted along he looked back to see a pair of holes, one each side of the umbilical. "Umm, guys, I think we have a problem." He called out through his headset, hoping the others were on the same frequency. A moment later he stepped through the melted doorframe and saw the claws ripping their way out of the locker.

"Ohh, nevermind. Looks like you have your hands full." He said calmly as he reached for his submachine gun and pistol. Swinging them both up he opened fire on whatever it was, only to be thrown back against the far bulkhead as sprays of plasma impacted around the locker, hitting everything but the holes he'd been aiming at. For a moment he lay stunned, his head ringing from where he'd hit it against the inside of his helmet, but as he recovered he quickly slammed his hand down on his belt control, activating the suit's grav boots.

"Okay, let's try that again." He said, taking aim with his guns once more, only this time he balsted at the door panel, shattering the controls in a burst of sparks.

With a silent hiss of escaping gas the door seal snapped off and the hatch swung open, a cloud of noxious air accompanying it into the airlock chamber, only to be sucked out towards the breach in the umbilical. "Quick, all of you clear the bay. I got this." JT called out, pulling a det-pack from his belt and thumbing the activator.

As soon as Mez had reached the inner confines of what looked to be another airlock, the activity levels of his teammates doubled. Marga was with the Syndarin trying to open the inner hatch, seemingly unfazed by his earlier deriding comment. He knew that to be untrue, however, and would likely come back to haunt him should they make it through this hatch alive. Farvis, one of the humans, had manage to punch his way into a locker. For what reason, Mez didn't know. Only that it was entirely unnecessary given that he probably could have melted it with his pistols. 'I guess he was trying to show off for Marga.' His show of strength backfired, it seemed, when a pair of claws attempted to cut off his arm and proceed to try and tear through the hole he had made with his fist.

Mez immediately went on the offensive, drawing his right pistol and raised it toward the locker. Before he could open fire, however, a hail of plasma appeared from his right. He looked to see another Human firing a sub-machine gun and a pistol wildly resulting him being thrown back from the low-gravity and the recoil. Not a single shot hit but Mez could only stare in confusion. 'Are you fucking kidding me?' The Human recovered quickly, activating his grav-boots. Fortunately for Mez, the Diviners back on Visipia -Men and Women who administered the cybernetic surgery for every Visipian- had saw fit to endow him with magnetic rods that were inserted into the calves of his legs. These rods would aid in reinforcing his lower legs from impact trauma mainly but were intended to be magnetic to act in the place of grav-boots. Additionally, small magnetic discs were inserted into the soles of his feet to allow for more precise control of his footing during zero-gravity situations.

The Human had turned by now and had opened fire on the door control panel, barely missing Marga and the Syndarin, an action he would likely come to regret. To his amazement, however, the inner hatch of the airlock popped open, followed by a rush of air from inside of the Lone Star. This time, there was no security measure in place to prevent this. Mez's attention was immediately drawn back to the umbilical. It was beginning to tear itself apart. The human's earlier warning of a problem must have been to do with the walkway that was still connected to the space dreadnought. He could only imagine that the Asteroid shower was upon them and had somehow pierced the tunnel. The lack of explosive decompression may have been a safety feature of the tunnel but now, with the rush of more air, it meant that that safety feature was about to become irrelevant. They needed to move inside and re-seal the hatch or they would all be dead.

Warning messages began to appear in his vision, thanks to the optical implants he'd been given. This immediately set off Mez's survival instincts. "Everyone inside! Now!" He began moving of his own accord, instinctively grabbing Marga by her waist and pulling her towards the opened hatch. The action surprised him as much as it would her but, for some reason, it had seemed like the right thing to do. Despite everything, his hatred of her kind and the fact that they both hated each other now, his instincts had told him to protect her. Could it be that, even though he thought himself completely alone in the galaxy, he couldn't bare the thought of losing her completely? He quickly shoved the notion to the back of his mind and refocused his mental efforts on staying alive.

Time seemed to slow as he watched the Human soldier, JR, begin pulling out a detonation pack, most likely for the thing that was still attempting to escape the locker. "Screw the heroics, just run!" He yelled, though he wasn't sure why. It's not as if he even cared about the man. Marga felt surprisingly light as he continued to pull her toward the entrance to the ship. He then noticed that his automatic adrenalin shots had been activated which only served to improve his reactions as well as his physical movements. Anticipating the coming explosion of detonation pack, Mez wrapped his right arm around Marga and launched them both through the hatch.

As the pair of them sprawled onto the hard, metallic floor beyond the hatch, deep within the the darkened corridor that awaited them, a dull boom resonated from the airlock chamber.

His brow furrowed. Inconclusive? What were these readings? One moment a living organism, the next a piece of equipment? Was this a living thing at all, or something camoflaged to look and behave like one? All he knew was that he had a list of data points to look through in his free time, but first, came the matter of the thing within the locker. The screech of tearing metal took his attention back to the door.

Simon's eyes widened as he saw the huge, long metallic blade-claw things poke through the hole, tearing them wider and wider with every passing moment, all while a thick purple liquid seeped from within. He leaned in to get a closer look, which was when JR took the opportunity to pepper the whole rack of lockers with concentrated plasma fire while being flung backwards into the rear bulkhead. It forced him to stagger backward to avoid burning his anything on the hot energy and to avoid being hit by flying man weight, after which he swiveled on a heel to face him.

"Are you mad?! You could've killed me!"

He sighed and shook his head mildly in frustration. This was getting nowhere fast. But he had samples to take.

He ducked down to avoid any more fire, while he reached for the broken locker door. There, on the floor beneath it, was a pool of the purple ichor. He dipped his index finger into the strange liquid and then withdrew quickly.

"System, scan substance on my right index finger."

He let the suit do its thing while adjusting his armour to get comfortable. Meanwhile, JR had finished reloading and pointed his guns at the door. Simon nodded as he watched him blast his way past the inner door's security systems, feeling a wave of fetid-smelling air push forth past them and into his armour's air inlets. He barely had the chance to mutter a quick 'seal and purify' before the inrush of wind blasted past him and into the depths of space. Behind him, the soldier pulled what looked to be an explosive device and armed it. Simon paled a little, but upon hearing his words, he knew what the man was going to do. He reached forward and patted the soldier on the shoulder, his grim expression unreadable past his faceplate.

"I don't know you, but you're a good man, JR. Thank you."

Saying this, he turned to the now open inner airlock door and advanced quickly towards it. Past the doorframe lay the innards of the ship's main docking bay and their first real steps into this ghost ship. He stepped past the threshold, his faceplate visor's light streaming into the dust-filled space, casting its bright crimson cross over wherever he was looking. He turned back to the airlock pressurisation chamber and waved forward.

"Come, colleagues, we have to get going lest Felix perishes and we're stranded here for life!"

After that he turned back around and repeated his earlier statement, albeit this time with more instructions.

"System, full environmental scan and workup. Optics, scan visuals, identify anomalies, key facilities and hazards. Highlight anomalies in purple, key points in blue and hazards in red. Then pull up map of Lone Star's main docking bay and hangar and display in bottom left corner of visual display, sync to my location and heading -"

He was immediately interrupted by Mez and Marga sprawling into him, followed by the unceremonious whump of the triggered explosive going off, no doubt consuming anyone that had been slow enough to linger in the room behind them. The pressure wave pushed him forward as well, making him faceplant directly onto the floor in the middle of his visual scan. He scrambled quickly to his feet and looked behind him. There they were, in a tangled heap on the floor, unhurt but shaken, kinda.

"For pete's sake! A little warning would've been nice!"

He dusted himself off. The airlock chamber behind them was a smouldering wreck, a gaping hole into the emptiness of space. Simon's memory went back to the rest of their crew; Hundred the Gygan, no doubt still in space just outside the umbilical. Sevyn, the Syndari. Had she made it in? He couldn't tell. And what about Farvis, their other doctor? Surely the augmented human would've made it in with his enhanced reflexes. He couldn't see any of them within the wreckage made by the ensuing explosion, but that wreckage was swiftly being sucked out by the vacuum of space through the hole in the hull. That was the present danger. Outside, the umbilical had been torn to shreds, though now the shuttle was free to fly away and whoever was trapped outside in space had a clear path through.

Simon reminded himself of the specifics. This was a mission. People were bound to die. All that mattered now was that he and the rest of the crew didn't.

Simon activated his armour's magnetic boots and anchored himself firmly to the floor. Clamping his rifle to the back of his rig, he hauled both Mez and Marga to their feet and held them steady. With his voice amplified by the faceplate's internal microphone, he yelled at them past the rushing wind.

"Be glad I have mag boots, colleagues! Marga, you need to help me search for a way to seal this hole, and fast! I don't know if Hundred or anyone else made it out of that alive, but if we don't get the survivors in and seal that hole, we're not going to make it! Mez, you too!"

He lifted his head and yelled again.

"Optics! Scan for hull breach failsafes!"

He diverted his gaze to the area of the hull breach and the surrounding walls. Hopefully there was something there that someone could trigger to seal off the breach before they lost anyone else. Then he remembered Felix.

"Felix! The umbilical's clear of the hull! Dust off, repeat, dust off! Get out of here while you can, you brave fool!"