Marga's fingers danced across the console screen as she tried to decrypt the Lone Star's code. It certainly wasn't the run of the mill, military algorithms she had spent so many years hacking into for her career as a thief. Ideally she'd want to delve deeper into the computer's depths and study the various codes that for some reason, kept changing their base sequence and re-incrypting themselves each time Marga almost had them figured out. If she didn't know any better, she'd say there was someone with knowledge of how hackers operated working against her at precisely that moment.

The thief's attention was momentarily diverted by the sound of something tearing, slicing through metal. Her eyes caught sight of what appeared to be claws and widened, before she turned her focus back to opening the door seeing as how the others were, more or less, handling whatever it was. Unable to get her goggles to scan the creature while her concentration was set on solving the algorithm conundrum was rather frustrating though. She'd have liked to of known what they were up against if they encountered another one.

A blast of heat whipped past her shoulder, startling the thief just as she was about to enter the last digit and finally crack the ever-changing codes. Whirling around, she practically snarled at the man who had almost shot her. The edge of her environmental suit was a little worse for wear on the left hand shoulder, but otherwise Marga had escaped the incredible feat of stupidity unharmed.

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

"Same here, you little git! You just wait unt-" Marga cut herself off, surprised as she heard the door behind her open.

The Lone Star had incredibly high-tech coding systems but blow up the console and the door just opened? Nah, something wasn't right about that.

"Everyone inside! Now!" @Kalas

Not needing to be told twice once she spotted the state of the umbilical tunnel, Marga was a split second away from darting through the now opened door when she felt an arm encircle her waist and pull her towards the hatch. Marga was shocked when she realised what she was feeling was the familiar protective touch of Mez. Dragging her out of harm's way was an action he had done countless times before when they were lovers and had been on various jobs together. When. Had. The thought kicked Marga into action and she struggled against the Visipian's incredibly strong hold on her body. She was about to start screaming at him when she noticed the explosive in JR's hand, but whatever she was about to say was lost in her throat as Mez launched them both through the doorway and out of the path of the explosion.

There was a a single second before the bomb went off - barely the time needed for a single heart beat - when Marga stared up into her former paramour's face. Her own was masked by the dark visor of her helmet and she didn't care to think about what her own expression might look like if he could see it. BOOM. Instinctively, Marga wrapped her arms around the back of Mez's head to protect it from oncoming, flying debris and pressed her body against his.

As the dust from the explosion cleared, Marga could practically hear her blood rushing through her heart as adrenaline coursed through her veins. Not being unused to explosions for the thief was an adapt bomb maker, Marga instantly took in the situation. Mez. On top of her. Mez. Marga's primal survival mode kicked in, memories of the last night they had spent together flashed through her mind and panic seized her chest.

"Get the fuck off me!" Marga shrieked and without even thinking about it, shoved and kicked as hard as she could to get out from under the Visipian who had tried to murder her.

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

The thief crawled a few feet away from where she had landed once she managed to get out from under Mez's body. Marga struggled to control her breathing, her limbs shaking as the primitive 'fight or flight' response went off in her brain with all the power of a star imploding - and it didn't have a single thing to do with almost having been blown to bits. Marga accepted the hand the doctor offered to her and stood on trembling legs. She just hoped that her suit would conceal these things from the others. She didn't want to be seen as the wink link.

"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!" @DJAtomika

"I'll go get Farvis, he was further back than the Syndarian. You work on the hole!" And with that Marga turned to go see if the others had survived, heading back towards the treacherous and deadly entrance.

As the explosion tore out of the side of the Lone Star's hull, shredding the umbilical as it went, Felix's first reaction was to pull away. One hand tapped at the airlock controls, sealing the shuttle's atmosphere off from the approaching fireball, as his other adjusted the thrusters for a full burn away from the dreadnought. His job here was done, now it was time to head out to a safe distance and wait for the recall beacon to fire up.

His thoughts were just beginning to turn to what he and Ensign Ballard would be doing in a few hours time when the alarm began to sound. Quickly pulling up the status screen he saw the damage report glaring red. A chunk of the explosion debris had impacted the port engine and the core was already beginning to overload. As quickly as he could Felix began diverting fuel to the starboard tanks and dumping anything which couldn't be salvage into space before the temperature reached critical.

Opening the commlink he called out to the party, "Hey guys. I'd love to say it's been nice knowing y'all bu-" His message ended abruptly as the fireball of exploding fuel engulfed the ship, leaving the stricken vessel careening out of control around the edge of the ancient vessel's hull. Moments later a bright glaring light shone out as radiation and pure energy blasted from the shuttle's stricken engine.

All this was lost on JR as he floated through the blackness, metal and stone spinning around him and the front of his suit melted from the force of the explosion.

---

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

'[[WORKING]]' The heads-up display indicated, opening a small panel which began to build-up what at first looked like a DNA chain only to wipe that and build a molecular map which seemed to be based on silicon, after a second that collapsed as well. The panel began to fill with more and more data, none of which seemed to make any sense to the computer's intelligence, leaving it once more with the message '[[INCONCLUSIVE]]'.

@DJAtomika "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 -"

SImon's HUD began to light up with a multicoloured mesh as the computer attempted to map the area for him, only to be interrupted by the impact from his teammates. The incomplete scan identified a long, wide corridor with what appeared to be a crane assembly overhead. At both ends large, heavily reinforced bulkheads cut off the corridor, sealing it from the rest of the ship , while across from the airlock hatch two smaller hatches, personnel sized hatched lay recessed into the walls.

@DJAtomika "Optics! Scan for hull breach failsafes!"

The wall in front of SImon, surrounding the open hatch was suddenly plastered with a psychedelic pattern of stress lines and pressure points, the worst of which were clustered around the open hatch. Luckily none of the damage seemed too severe and as long as they could reseal the hatch the inner hull should be able to withstand the pressure, as long as no other explosions were set off in their vicinity.

Several things happened in quick succession. First, the vixen took over the job of opening the door from Sevyn which, although reluctant, she obliged to. The little thief probably had more familiarity with the language than she did and with the groundwork Sevyn had laid down for her it seemed as if they would actually crack open the door in time. Turns out the vixen was actually competent at something besides creating blatant sexual tension. Surprising for all parties involved

Then there were also the boys behind them doing some nonsense with the locker - something to do with claws, presumably deadly. Sevyn didn't much care, they were big boys.

The biggest offender though was when some idiot shot the console just as the human was about to open the door and maybe she actually had considering the door opened and not a multitude of horrible, terrible things like forever being locked inside the cramped little airlock for the rest of their miserable lives, or at least until they would be forcibly blasted out into space, doomed to float endlessly. The chances of the toughest codes Sevyn had ever seen up to that point being beaten by two sticks and a plasma bolt were so wild and out in the realms of fantasy that it hurt her head to think about how that possibly could have worked.

To save her sanity, Sevyn chose to believe the vixen had cracked the door and not that the magical solution to opening everything was to shoot at it until it worked.

It was funny how the dossiers never mentioned how her entire team was full of crazies, idiots, or crazy idiots. Jemini agreed in her own foul mouthed way, wisely revising the choice to voice the opinion that her owner fit into all of the above.

The Syndarin walked through the door before Marga, her hands raised exasperatedly as the boys continued to chatter and screech behind her, something about an explosive. Sevyn placed herself right beside the doorway, waiting for the explosion and the resulting shockwave to go off before storming off to the next bulkhead and began working on the console to properly open it, leaving the job of resealing the atmosphere to her compatriots.

Who knows, maybe if they shot the console on this side of the door enough times it'll close and reseal the atmosphere and reveal the secret treasures of the Lost Star and everybody gets a happy ending.

Yay.

For the briefest of moments, Mez was at peace. Cascading into the hatchway, his arms wrapped around his former lover and her's similarly embracing him. The amalgamation of rushing air and a powerful explosion punctuating his moment of bliss. He gazed down towards Marga, though her mask was on, he could tell what her expression would be purely from memory. It was a moment that seemed to last forever, as if they were trapped in time, destined to hold on to each other for eternity.

When Mez awoke, it was to the sound of shouting. "Get the fuck off me!" @Bonjour xx

Marga was struggling beneath him. It took him a few seconds to realize the situation but once he did, Mez rolled away swiftly. His face screwed up into his usual look of disgust. And, slowly, feelings of regret and anger came flooding back. 'Why? Why the hell did I save her?' In the time since their parting, Mez had only ever needed to look out for himself. Now, the first time the two of them saw each other again, his instincts were off on their own mission to get back into her pants. Well that's about as likely to happen as that Human surviving. Nobody could have withstood that, not even him.

But there was now a bigger problem to deal with, the breach in the hull. The umbilical had been torn away completely and the rush of air had grown stronger. If it weren't for his naturally magnetic implants, he would have been jettisoned into space with the rest of the contents of the airlock. His re-breather had activated autonomously too, as well as his Jurichara Shielding, which kept him completely airtight. He would need to move fast, the hole was only going to get worse.

After a few moments, he saw a hand offered out in front of him. A white gauntlet, the hand of the Human Medic. He batted it aside ungratefully. "Get the hell outta my face, I'm not hurt." He spat with venom.

"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!" @DJAtomika

"I'll go get Farvis, he was further back than the Syndarian. You work on the hole!" @Bonjour xx

Pushing himself to his feet, Mez started toward the hatch door, it looked out of commission due to the explosion but the hinges looked to be in reasonable condition and, with any luck, could be forced closed. As he reached the door, he activated the mag-pads in his palms and latched on, then began to push behind it. "You better hurry up and get your asses in here, otherwise you're getting left behind." As he started to exert his enhanced strength, the large metallic door screeched in protest. He grimaced against its monstrous weight but slowly the door began to move. "Seriously!" He breathed, the door inching further with each strained effort, "Get the fuck in here!"

Hundred hissed in her helmet. Impacts were occurring all around her. She felt a light patter on her back as her suit's armor layer absorbed impacts that would have punched through her naked torso. A small twinge in her head reminded her of the defensive protocols programmed into the Dust, screaming at her to let it enact protective construction. She shut down those commands hard. She needed the Dust where it was. More deformations appeared in the plating around her, tremors running through the outer hull as it wobbled and wavered to absorb the impact. A subtle shift occurred in the tremors running up her legs. It was done. The tremors dissipated as she detached herself from the hull, or rather, the plate she was magnetized too drifted free. The Dust shifted to cradle herself and the plate before the violent impacts around them could throw them wildly off course. Until the larger meteorites showed up, the Dust could maneuver them amidst the kinetic events occurring now. She carefully turned in space, positioning the plate above her, a personal shield for the storm. There was a flash. An explosion.

Hundred tumbled end over end, still attached to the plate as it spiraled through space. She was disoriented, she could not make a clear look at her surroundings, it was spinning by too fast. A nausea response was being suppressed. Baseline template Gygans would have passed out from the forces spinning her. The cosmos was a blur of light and shadow. The data from the Dust was inconclusive. She could not locate the Lone Star not a good sign. The Dust had a free floating range of 28 meters, she could be only hundred feet from the hull or 10 thousand. The Dust was already acting to compensate for the spin, but it was not designed for self-actuation. Inefficient. It needed her input. Changing it's orientation she phasically induced additional energy to the outer Dust Layer, reverse it's orientation. Slowly she arrested her centrifugal motion and slowed her acceleration. Time was crucial, she twisted on the plate, small tremors from micro meteor impacts still occurred. She could not see the Star. She slowly twisted herself around. There! Not too far...less than 600 meters. She could make that. The dust coalesced on the far side of the plating. It tightened into a tiny mass. It burst. Hurtling back towards the Star, Hundred aimed for the partially opened airlock, barely visible to her senses. She spared a glance around the rest of her surroundings. Space was growing thick with micrometeors and a few that were large enough to be visible to her assisted sight. Not good. She would reach to airlock before the second stage of the MAC, but she could not complete her work in time. No choice. The shuttle was nowhere to be seen. There was ambient radiation and cooling plasma moving counter to the meteoroids moving through her Dust, she knew the shuttle was gone. Her expression hardened further, she didn't know it could do that. Not for the dead pilot. His existence did not factor much for her. But the lose of the shuttle completely changed the parameters of this operation. It was now about survival, not success. Wait...something else. Her suit detected another object. Not a rebounding meteor or shuttle piece. Human shaped. Still radiating evidence of a working power cell. It was 371 meters starboard of her course...moving too fast for her to retrieve in time before the 2nd MAC phase began. She sighed. No choice. No time. She sped past the body of James Rourke. His imminent demise she did regret. If she had greater capacity of action she might have saved him. The universe was a messy place.

The Dust arrayed itself in front of her again to slow her acceleration towards the little 2 meter hole she aimed for. Not much of a target window. The Dust would not slow her or the plate completely in time anyway. That was ok, she had expected as much. The drag from the Dust did decelerate her somewhat, and helped to bank her trajectory. But she was still moving at just under 20 kilometers an hour when she cleared the airlock. In the eighth of a second she had to see the Visipian before slamming into him she had enough time to register two thoughts. The stupid bastard was trying to close the airlock manually and the universe was a messy place. The force of the impact ricocheted Hundred as her shoulder struck his left flank, spinning into the port wall she rebounded again, ready for it this time she worked with her inertia spinning her body around to hit the next surface feet first, contracting her thighs as she hit she magnetized herself to the hull. She hit hard, much harder than landing on the outer hull. She knew her legs came close to breaking. There would be bruising, swelling, perhaps some tearing of tissue. She balanced herself against the wall and slowly stood. But she could move, that mattered. She still needed to move, crawling along the wall she pushed off towards the airlock, ignoring the Visipian and whatever condition he was in. The plate she had rode was still in the Dust, safely cushioned above the door. There was no time. Thrusting out her arms she curled her fingers and drew her clawed hands to her hips. The Dust pulled the plate against the airlock, flush. She could feel it's contours. Not a perfect fit. It wouldn't be. She focused her attention on the Dust she had left in the still molten edges. The Dust agitated itself, the metal melted, molding, dripping it down between the section of plating, reorienting molecules into a lattice before phasically transferring energy away from the metals, fusing it to the airlock plating. There was no telltale signs of success. The room seem to be powered for repressurization and reconstitution of internal atmosphere, perhaps the mechanism was simply slow. Checking once more for any leaks with the Dust remaining outside, Hundred commanded the remaining material to form a secondary seal around her welding job. Satisfied, Hundred stopped glaring at the plating in front of her. Or, perhaps, is rather turned that glare to more deserving locals.

She turned her gaze around the airlock chamber. She looked at Mez for a moment, no words passing between them for a moment. Two predators just acknowledging each other's presence. If Mez gave Hundred any deference at all, it would not be a sign of submission. But perhaps he could recognize the look in her eye. Some predators hunted for blood out of necessity, some for pleasure, some for anger. Hundred seemed to exude all three. Gripping the airlock door she disengaged the magnetism of her feet, shifting to reclamp onto the 'floor' of the ship. Stalking out of the room she looked at the melted door console, the blast damage from the explosion, and scattered motley of her teammates. She spotted the Syndari. With a purpose Hundred marched over to the slight creature. A heavy glove fell upon the pilots shoulder. Hundred stared down into Sevyn's faceplate. Something only slightly less than murder shown from her eyes.

"You left me outside of the ship. Alone." She spoke simply. Low. She almost sounded hurt. Or maybe just livid. "You left me outside of the ship...so that you could slip inside before the umbilical connected." She turned her gaze around the ruins of the two rooms they had torn their way into. "I do not know what you hoped to accomplish by doing so. But I do know that you owe me for your fecklessness. I will have that debt paid." There was a small golden shimmer in the air as the Dust oriented itself around them. "I will have my...satisfaction." There was a small silent pall. Perhaps an understanding.

Hundred stopped looming. She crouched next to Sevyn and the console. "So, tell me what you've found about this ship's systems." Her tone had not softened, but it was no longer bladed.

"You better hurry up and get your asses in here, otherwise you're getting left behind." @Kalas

Marga barely heard the Visipian's threat above the screech of the metal door slowly overcoming the friction of not having been maintained or oiled for near-on a decade. The explosion had done considerable damage docking area and all but torn the umbilical cord leading to the Navy shuttle to shreds. The theif scanned the debris, parts of the Lone Star's interior still floating around. She just hoped that the unknown creature that had attacked Farvis was dead. Speaking of Farvis, she spotted him slumped against the opposite wall to the locker that had housed the creature, unmoving.

"Farvis!" Marga yelled over to the doctor and quickly made her way through wreckage. "Farvis, we've got to move! Farvis!"

When no response came from the man, Marga dropped to her knees besides him and quickly took stock of the situation. Though his environmental suit looked a little worse for wear, Marga couldn't see any tears or punctures. As gently as she could manage, Marga managed to roll the doctor onto his back. Thagt was when she spotted a dark liquid spattered on the inside of his helmet's visor. Shit/

"Seriously! Get the fuck in here!" @Kalas

Marga knew that the number one rule of all head wounds was not to move the injured person, but at that precise second, she didn't have that luxury. Swearing under her breath, she sprang to her feet and grabbed Farvis' ankles. Dragging him across towards the door was slow going, given that Marga herself was rather small. However, the force of the blast from the Navy shuttle was more than sufficient to propel them the last few feet through the hatch before it shut.

Ow... Marga lay in a crumpled heap underneath of Farvis' still unconscious body. Groaning, she managed to slide out from under it.

"Doc, you're needed here!" Marga called over to Simon, then turned her attention back to Farvis, shaking him gently. "Come on Farvis, wake up." No response. She shook him with a bit more force. "You're making a big fuss over nothing. All you've got is a 'man wound'. Seriously Farvis, wake up!"

Marga didn't like this situation one bit. They were a crew member down - possibly two if Farvis didn't wake up - and their ride out of here had just exploded. Oh, and not to mention there may or may not be loads of deadly creatures lying in wait for them all over the ship.

When he had told them to get inside, Mez hadn't expected Hundred to come hurtling straight at him. The impact of their collision sent him cascading across the corridor and smashing into the wall. An audible clang of metal rang out, echoing in both directions. That was sure to wake something up. As he regained his composure and returned to his feet, he let out a feral growl of displeasure. The metal flooring beneath where he had fallen remained scraped and dented but Mez was fine in comparison.

He was just brushing himself off when he turned a focused stare toward the Gygan, sizing her up. Despite the recent calamity, he didn't feel any ill will towards her simply annoyance. Though the look he received in return was just as predatory. Of the six of them on board the forgotten space hulk, he deemed her the most dangerous besides him. However, she also seemed the least likely to lash out in an angry manner. He supposed that's what made her one to watch. If she was going to do anything, it would most certainly be a well-calculated, premeditated attack. And if the pair of them came to blows, he wasn't entirely sure how he'd call the fight. Whilst he was extremely familiar and confident in his own strengths and abilities, the Gygan on the other hand remained somewhat of a mystery to him. Sure, she had displayed sufficient usage of her micro/nano-scale machinery she liked to call The Dust, but her actual fighting prowess had yet to be fully displayed. The droids from earlier were hardly a fight.

He mentally noted her down as a level 3. As he did so, three miniature stars appeared above her head. His optical implants came with a Combat Initiative Program that would identify threats, weaknesses and certain points of interest, as well as vitals and damage reports. Whilst it remained useless as a normal environment scanner, during the heat of combat or situations that presented a certain factor of danger towards his being, the program would display many useful pieces of information and data to help Mez to survive. Scanning the room, he looked at each of his so-called 'teammates', they were currently all identified as green. Anything new that moved would automatically be identified as red until established that it was not a threat. He had input suspected combat ratings of the other members of the mission back on board the shuttle, only now had he decided upon Hundred's.

He noted that Marga had managed to drag an injured Human through the door in time. It was Farvis - the man he had sworn to himself would die by his hand. He felt nothing for him now, even if he were on death's door, although he would have preferred to be the one to administer the killing blow. His former lover was growing increasingly more concerned with the man but Mez let it go, she was prone to becoming emotional during times like these. Instead of hovering over the man, he decided that he would look around the corridor in which they had managed to survive. He began an idle stroll to the left, keeping a single hand on his pistol and his other hand on his blade, ready for anything.

The terminal sparked into life, restoring partial emergency power to the corridor and lighting up the evacuation guides designed to help guide the crew in case of a hull breach, a system which may have been triggered by either the loss of the external hatch, the explosion in the airlock or the shuttle's inglorious exit.

Unfortunately for the party, the guides all seemed to be pointing to the very hatch they'd just sealed behind them, granting no further assistance to their endeavour. The emergency lighting however was a little more useful, bringing to light the guide arrows etched into scorched the wall panel.

To the bow of the ship lay the main hangar, where the ship's own complement of shuttles was likely housed, a chamber currently exposed to space with the main docking doors opened two meters.

To the stern the sign pointed to something identified as a maintenance bay, presumably a facility for the upkeep of the shuttle fleet, as well as other basic ship's systems.

The two doors in the corridor were identified as the Shuttle Control Room, and the Head.

"Doc, you're needed here!"

"On my way!"

Ignoring the relative havoc that was going on within the docking bay, he rushed to Marga and Farvis' side. His hand found the release of the force field helmet and tapped it, opening up the man's face to the elements, well, all the elements that were in the room anyway. He barely had time to register Hundred careening past the closing door, crashing into Mez and upsetting everything else, but then there she was, sealing up the door to give them breathable air, or at least a semblance of one. The ship's emergency lighting chose that moment to restore itself, though he knew not how, and he had more light than just his visor's light. He flipped the faceplate of his armour up with a flick of his chin and gave the poor man a once over. His face was covered in blood, so was the inside of his visor, his breathing was ragged but steady, but his optics would have to provide him with a better view. As he reached behind him to grab a hand into his back rig, he gave his optics their next command.

"Optics, x-ray, scan for severe injuries and highlight immediately."

His groping hand found a small tube and he pulled it right out immediately. The translucent green fluid within vibrated gently as the vial settled in his hand while he slowly swept his optics over Farvis' battered body. Even without the help of his tech, he saw the mighty large gash that had torn its way across the man's face, diagonally across and to the left. Thankfully whatever had caused him the damage had missed his eyes; even with his medical supplies he couldn't regrow those here. He popped the top of the vial and poured a small amount of the cool green gel along the gash. The antiseptics in the compound acted immediately, producing a slight buzzing, painful sensation that almost immediately dulled as the analgesics within the gel next took their effect; the gel warmed up and began to melt, flowing into the wound and being absorbed by Farvis' exposed dermis and tissue underneath. As the medigel continued its healing effects, Simon kept his hand still and gentle on the man's face, his eyes shut tight, and if one were to lean in closely, they could hear him muttering, under his breath, the below statement extremely quietly, repeating itself over and over again.

"A spiritibus supra omnia curare et absolvat hunc dolorem."

The flesh underneath his hand would, almost as if by magic, slowly stitch itself and seal back together. The gash, after all, was a minor injury, merely a flesh wound, and the medigel's rapid healing capabilities could handle that no sweat. It was the other injuries that concerned him more, and shortly his system would have the answer to that. After he'd treated Farvis he would return his attention to the matter of the ship and the rest of their unlikely team.

Farvis opened his eyes to see the doctor standing over him. "Trying to give me Last Rights, Doctor?" he said. "I'm not Catholic and I'm not dead yet. Thank you for the healing, though." He felt the would on his head repair itself. "Gotta love medigel." When he sat up he grabbed a syringe of stem cells from his kit and laid them on a glowing section the cellular programmer he carried them in. "Still a bit of a concussion. Mind if I use a few stem cells to fix any neural damage?" Without waiting for a reply he told the machine to set program them to mimic human neurons, then injected them into himself. Pulling the needle out, he looked around. "So, I was out for a bit so I've got a few questions. One, who rescued me? I need to thank them. Two, does anyone know which way I need to go to get to the medical bay, as we obviously need to set up quickly? And three, WHO THE HELL THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO SET OFF AN EXPLOSION IN THE AIRLOCK? I ALMOST DIED!" He shouted the last bit, hoping that whoever that idiot was would realize how stupid they were for doing it. What were they thinking? Explosions in close proximity to others in an enclosed space?

In a sudden burst of sparks and plastic components the terminal under Sevyn's fingers suddenly exploded in her face, almost as if someone had intentionally directed a pulse through the ship's systems to deliberately prevent her from activating anything other than the lights.

Marga rolled her eyes at Farvis' outburst, noting gladly that there appeared to be no worse injury than some nasty looking tissue damage and a concussion - which both doctors promptly took care of anyway. Marga stood up, pleased that the situation had been dealt with. Normally she wouldn't have been the one to help out a fellow teammate - and especially not an injured one at that. However the circumstances here were very different from a mission with the Armada. With these people, half of whom were strangers, there was no law that stated that any man who fell behind would be left behind - at least, Marga thought, no one had voiced such a notion. Furthermore, having two trained medical professionals was bound to come in extremely useful given how the team was barely in the Lone Star's front door and had already suffered casualties and fatalities.

Looking over to where Mez stood further down the corridor, Marga wasn't so sure what would happen to her if she were that aforementioned person unlucky enough to fall behind. Then again, there was that moment right before and immediately following the bomb going off earlier. Unconsciously, the thief's feet had started leading her over to where the Visipian was standing, hand poised on his gun. When Marga noticed this, she spun on her heel and quickly diverted her attention to the nearest possible thing. This just happened to be the door with writing on it that read 'Shuttle Control Room'.

Hoping her earlier actions hadn't been caught by Mez, Marga ran her palm up and down the center of the door. She knocked against the metal a few times too, testing it. Her findings didn't shock her. The door was heavily reinforced, but clearly wasn't designed to outsmart thieves. The middle of the door held the solution to opening it. Marga knocked on this part of the entrance a few more times before she was satisfied, then she opened the messenger-style bad that was slung over her shoulder and started rooting around in its depths.

After a few moments of searching, Marga pulled out what looked to be a type of grenade and then a vial of fluorescent purple liquid. Marga popped open the vial and poured the liquid along the edges of the armoured panels that were located down the middle of the Shuttle Control Room's door. Then, the thief expertly and carefully picked apart the grenade and sprinkled its contents over where she had poured the colourful liquid. Grinning, Marga stepped back and watched as the chemicals reacted to effectively melt through the amoured panel, which when Marga stepped forward and tugged at it, fell away easily, revealing six heavy-duty locks beneath it.

Marga nodded, more to herself than anyone, then preceded to crack her knuckles. It was an unconscious habit she had before she attempted picking locks, one she'd had for years now. Marga worked silently on the locks, carefully twisted the tumblers this way and that, hoping to hit their sweet spots. It didn't take too long and one by one, a satisfying click was heard from each of them. The thief stood up from where she'd been crouching as she worked on the last lock and took a step back, bumping into a familiar body. Jumping slightly, Marga cleared her throat and stepped to the side.

"Anybody want to do the honours?" she asked, referring to pushing or pulling the heavy door open now that she had unlocked it. Well, she hoped she had unlocked it.

As the locks gave way under Marga's deft touch a gentle hiss of escaping air wafted past as the uncontaminated atmosphere within began to mix with the thinner, less well fragranced air in the corridor. A moment later a series of clicks and whirrs could be heard from the ceiling as ancient systems came back to life, panels sliding apart and gears moving into place lowering a pair of automated guns down into the passageway.

For a moment the guns swung back and forth as if uncertain as to what they were supposed to be doing, before springing to life, peppering the hallway with laser blasts designed to discourage unwanted access to the control room behind them.

And let there be light!

At least, Sevyn hoped that the lights coming on were her doing and not because of some emergency power that was reactivated automatically. Nevertheless, the lights gave her some hope that she was doing something right with the console, despite the blasted code changing and rewriting itself over and over again as she tried to get the code to resemble anything that would be close to normal.

Her efforts were not helped when Hundred flew violently into the corridor (though it seemed she had done a swell job locking the open door back up; better than that other one was doing anyway with his pushing and grunting), did some fancy doothing with her Dust, then rudely stomping loudly toward the obviously working Syndarin. On top of that, she had the audacity to shove her dirty mug into Sevyn's faceplate. Honestly the woman had no manners. Did she not know how long Sevyn was going to have to spend cleaning her faceplate? Okay well admittedly not long - in fact it was already clean - but still. Manners.

It only got more annoying once the Giygan began speaking.

"I'm sorry, princess," Sevyn replied in mock apology in a tone reserved for infants and the mentally retarded. "I didn't know the wittle clone was scared of a few big bad drones. I'm sorry for not being able to hold your hand the entire time, but I promise the next time when we go out on a space adventure where I have to choose between finding us an entrance or helping you squash little bugs, I'll help you with the bugs."

Just then the console Sevyn had been working on exploded in her face, the resulting blast sending out pure electric hate that only confirmed the Syndarin's suspicions that it hated her, despite her being the most arguably qualified to work with the ship's software. Or maybe it was because she was the most qualified with the software.

Off to her left, Sevyn could hear Jemini repeatedly whirring in what sounded suspiciously like mocking laughter.

Sevyn shook her head in disgust, standing up and taking a moment to stop her ears from ringing and her vision to not be all white and flashy. Once both had returned to normal, she dusted herself off and began working on the next console. Once she had cracked into the code again, she deigned to answer Hundred's question.

"I'm sure you know as well as I do that nothing was spared in the construction of this ship. That included the software. Whoever built this ship had also commissioned someone to write an entirely new language for the Lone Star's software. Normally not a problem, as a language is a language; once you learn it and know how to use it everything's all fine and dandy. Unfortunately whoever wrote this code was some demonic genius, since the code keeps constantly changing and adapting by itself." Sevyn frowned as the code did just that right beneath her fingertips again, and she smacked the console in retaliation.

"Like this, see. The moment you get close to telling it to do something you want, it just rewrites itself into something completely new. There may be a pattern, or there may be some entity controlling the software which I-" Sevyn paused as she heard the tiny click click clicks of tumblers unlocking under the vixen's graceful hands. Which Sevyn thought was all fine and dandy of course, considering they couldn't spend all day in the hallway but, physical tumblers. Why would this ship have physical tumblers.

"Then again," Sevyn muttered, "there's the also the possibility that whoever designed this ship was infinitely crazy."

Unfortunately the unlocking door also seemed to call to life several automated turrets, all of which began lasering everything. Since it is almost universally accepted that being lasered is a bad thing, Sevyn forcefully pulled Jemini into a position where she blocked the turrets from Sevyn. The drone began loudly complaining as she always did as things began lasering her body while Sevyn unfolded her weapon and began firing in kind as she slowly retreated back toward the door the vixen had just opened.

As she backed through the doorway the turrets quickly seemed to lose interest in her, their simple machine logic ordering them to focus fire on the people outside the control room, rather than those already inside.

The control room itself seemed surprisingly well furnished, with several padded and comfortable looking chairs lining the side of the room and looking out through a heavily armoured viewport into the shuttle bay below. The control panel was shot, literally. The casing marred and pitted with multiple blaster holes, almost as if someone had opened fire on it on full-auto, but the display screens were flicking to life in response to Sevyn's entry, their screens smashed and broken but systems obviously still active, even after all this time.

He had expected Farvis to stand up and recover rather quickly; the man was a doctor, albeit not a very honest one, but a doctor nonetheless. He nodded as the doors to the innards of the ship slowly slid open after Marga's fiddling. Progress. Finally.

"Marga rescued you, Farvis. And as to the medical bay, unless someone has a detailed map of the ship interior, I don't we'll find it that -"

Suddenly he was interrupted by the pings and cracks of laser fire from down the hall, and as he ducked out of the way he saw that the fire came from two ceiling mounted turrets that swiveled and tracked their movements with frightening accuracy. Obviously these things were a threat that needed to be taken care of, but he was too busy trying not to get shot to solve that problem. As he dove for cover he spotted Marga and Farvis, frozen in the hallway. He knew that the augmented human could dive to safety quick enough, but Marga wasn't that fast. She took a spatter of laser fire across her abdomen, scorching her suit and whatever armour she wore as she fell. He heard her swear multiple times ("FUCKING SHIT FUCK OW BLOODY FUCKING <alien swear words> OW") as she hit the floor, while their Syndari teammate took cover behind her drone and blasted her way forward. Simon sighed and reached out, grasping Marga by the wrist as he pulled her out of the line of fire and into the relative safety of the bay. Once done, he assessed her just like he did with Farvis.

He guessed that the lasers the ceiling turrets were packing weren't strong to completely incinerate whatever they hit, but lasers were lasers; they were hot and they hurt like a bitch. That's what he needed to treat first, and another tube of medigel was all he needed. With Farvis recovering quickly enough from his injuries, he'd still had half a tube left over, so he used that tube and squeezed the rest of it all over her burned stomach and sides, using his gloves to liberally spread the cooling, numbing gel all over the burns. The regenerative agents within the gel would act quickly, sealing wounds, healing her inner flesh and regenerating the outer layers of skin, and though they wouldn't heal whatever cosmetic damage she'd sustained to her suit, she was healthy. He capped the empty tube and slid it back into his rear rigging for refilling later, so now he focused on the turrets. Those things were dual-barreled security turrets, rapid fire laser guns that were more for area denial than anything else. He cursed under his breath, flipped his faceplate down and deactivated the safety of his battle rifle. He felt its computers whirr its internal machinery into life, powering up the huge, magnetic rails and tines that made up its assembly. With fire still spattering the front of that hallway, Simon had barely any space to reach around the wall, but so he did, and he aimed his rifle at the relative area where one of the turrets was and pulled the trigger several times. Slugs of molten metal screamed their way towards his target, punching through whatever armour the turrets had as they buried themselves in the machinery and circuitry, frying and searing whatever they touched before they rapidly cooled, sealing themselves inside their holes, preventing any repair.

"Hey, watch the hands!" Marga glared at Simon, her eyes darting over at Mez for a moment, self-conscious of her own weakened condition. The doctor was already turning away from the stricken Thuboisii half-breed, his rifle firing several shots at the turrets as they continued tracking targets in the hallway.

The first volley skitted harmlessly off of the turrets' armour plating, the metal darts bouncing away to impact against the hallway wall. THe second round was luckier, a single sliver finding a weak point in the military-grade plating and digging its way inside the weapon. The turret fell silent, hanging limply from its housing, its innards shredded.

The second turret suddenly stopped its random firing, and for a moment darted back and forth uncertainly before locking onto Simon's position and opening fire with all its strength. The charged laser blasts peppered his cover, slowly eating their way through as the electronics hidden inside began to spark and stutter, sending arcs of energy rippling through the surface.

Hundred bared her teeth as the Syndarin spoke. It was a smile. It did not just resemble one. It wasn't just with her teeth. Mirth reached her eyes. But there was something else in it. A bloody stain on the purity of the genuine smile. A brutality. Some awful anticipation glistened off of Hundred's teeth. The Syndarin was actually challenging her. In albeit an insipid and infantile way, but the brazen gall with which she did so sent an electric shiver through the faulty Gygan. Her mouth opened slightly to respond, so many possibilities whirling through her head and on her lips. Then the Syndarin spoke of the most beautiful thing Hundred could imagine. An explosion of excitement burst through Hundred's nervous system. Then the console exploded across her face.

Hundred did not flinch. She regarded the melted ruins of the node. The smile remained. If anything, it only grew in intensity. She looked at the console, then back at the Syndarin. She looked like she was about to kiss the alien, or, perhaps, tear out her throat with her teeth. The smile on her face suggested that the two propositions were not exclusive. Hundred parted her teeth again to speak. A click, the gentle breathy sound of metals sliding across one another, nearly frictionless. The whine of auto-lasers. Now Hundred's smile shifted. No more warmth in the eyes. A snarl now. This ship had a most irritating sense of timing.

The Dust reacted according to automated contingencies, reflexively contracting in the atmosphere around Hundred, reorienting themselves in response to the observed threat of the lasers. A small cloud of refractive particles was being generated around her to diminish the strength of any stray bolts that found themselves firing at Hundred, who remained still, crouched next to the panel. Her lips slipped over her teeth, the snarl becoming a more comfortable frown. She calmly watched the scattering barrage. The turrets were not exceptionally powerful, designed for suppression and to avoid causing significant damage to the ships hull or systems. Still, effective anti-personnel weapons with consistent, direct fire. Movement to her right caught Hundred's eye, the Syndarin retreated behind the cover of her drone, retreating into the far chamber. Perhaps she was a useless creature after all, Hundred mused. The magic of the moment was gone, in any case. Hundred turned her attentions elsewhere.

The human, combat-medical officer had pulled the Thuboisii into cover turning his weapons to bear upon the turrets. He managed to disable one, drawing the attention of the other. Hundred frowned. The turrets were behaving from software. They had almost completely ignored her. She glared at the remaining turret, firing incessantly with a rapid whine. A burning, liquid anger rose in Hundred's throat. She growled low to herself. It offended her. It wasn't that the thing was trying to kill her or her fellow mercenaries. It wasn't that it's attention resources were not focused upon her. It was how pointless the exercise was. How utterly banal the entire affair was in comparison to the possibilities that had surge through her consciousness a scant, few moments ago. Hundred's wrist flexed. This was the end of enough.

The Dust arrayed a portion of itself into a long black blade, similar to the one she had driven into the hull of the ship when she had tried to access the airlock, smaller in scale, but almost identical in function. A second iteration of the idea. Hundred sniffed with disdain, heavy, gloved fingers closing around the lance. She whipped her arm forwards, throwing the spear. The gravimetric control of the Dust adjusting to the flippant, untrained throw. The tip of the spinning spear connected with the base of the turret arresting it's motion vertical, in line with the center of the turret's housing socket. Hundred's fingers transcribed a small circle in the air, the Lance thrust into the machine, punching a small, but vital line through the center of the turret. In the fractions of a second that followed the penetration of the turret casing, the tip of the lance blossomed, a flow of compressed Dust injecting itself into the turrets circuitry. But Hundred was not interested in the simple, robust innervation of the security device. Dust flooded along the circuit lines, swift as signals. It skated along the q-bit, superconductive wiring, fast as thought, spreading throughout the local area circuitry. Hundred did not have a lot of time, she was frozen, her arm still outstretched, somato-tactile control switched over to point-to-point interfacing with the Dust. The remaining Dust cloud around her body slithered and shifted through the air, forging free-form circuits in the air that shifted constantly with her computations. Little golden sigils formed and flowed into one another in the air around Hundred, the only visible indicator of what she was trying to accomplish.

If Hundred was correct, she would not have much time to accomplish her intentions. The Dust spindled and spread through as much of the internal ship circuitry as it could, it was beautiful, tracing the Lone Star's nervous system, an intricate, crystalline web of metal and mineral that gave the ship it's life. Hundred's supply of Dust dwindled, her mylination efforts slowed. She felt the commands firing through the network. No time. Hundred mutilated her little slice of the ship. The ships lights turned off for .023 seconds before popping back on. Hundred straightened. She moved slowly, as through carelessness could kill them all. Perhaps it would. She blinked rapidly, her eyes darting with similar frenetic energy around her field of vision. It was always difficult to reorient herself to the more singular perceptions of her 'natural' body. She slowly flexed her fingers and toes. She spoke over the comms in the silence that followed.

"I have-" her voice cracked, Hundred paused and cleared her throat. "I have introduced a halting problem to the local area systems for this part of the ship and physically isolated it from the rest of the network." Her voice sounded alien to her ears. "The alternating compilation problem with the system could cease in this part of the ship and we should have no interference from agency in other parts of the vessel." She did not elaborate. Those that would understand a more detailed explanation would more efficaciously be informed by their own interactions with the ship. Those that did not were not worth her time.

Hundred walked slowly towards the control room. She had not mentioned how uncertain it was that she could maintain the system isolation or lockdown, the Dust had physically severed the mainline connections with the central ship computers. Thousands of tiny segments of broken superconductive wire were floating around in the walls. But there could be no way of knowing yet whether the ship had the ability to repair such damage, or even if it was capable of identifying that such damage had been done. It did not matter. The brutal action had bought her time. Time to think. To plan. To observe and experiment upon the specimens of the ships computational software she had within her newly minted control conditions. A small, toothless smile returned to Hundred's lips as she stalked towards the control center. Possibilities blazed once more in her mind. She would get what she came for in this mission. Her thoughts only briefly noted the presence of her fellows. Perhaps she was be the only one.

Inside the control room the damaged system displays suddenly went dead, the screen blanking out as their connection to the central computer core was cut. With no orders in place the ship's systems began to switch back to conservation mode, lights and life support powering down as the systems mistook the interruption as a ship-wide power down.

Somewhere, several decks above the intruding party, a presence sensed the change in state, something which hadn't happened since its first awakening. While its mind didn't truly understand the concept a new sensation rushed through its form, a wave of pleasure and anticipation. Its brief contact with the Other had been exhilarating, and even now it could sense its influence growing beyond its own structure.

Marga ignored the commotion going on from where she was sheltered, examining her newly sustained wounds. Damn, laser burns hurt like a bitch - and they'd burned a hole right through her environmental suit to boot. It wasn't a particularly bad or large hole though, so with a bit of luck she could patch it up just fine. And with even a bit more luck they might be able to get the proper power back switched back onto the Lone Star. Perhaps it was wishful thinking, but the environmental suit currently keeping the thief alive was also irritating her. It was very cumbersome and heavy. Without it she'd have been able to easily dive out of the way of those lasers. Marga cursed the bloody thing.

Though why the lasers were still activated was beyond her. The possibilities were intriguing though - well, to a thief such as Marga they were anyway. The Shuttle Control Room had security to keep out miscreants, that she could understand, there was valuable equipment in there after all and tampering with it could potentially affect the safety of everyone on board. If you were to sabotage it, that was - again, she was approaching the situation like she would if she were planning to steal something. However, the ship was only now running on back-up power which the team had activated. The mystery as to where the turrets were getting their power from was puzzling - and why? Surely there were more important rooms than this one to divert power to in an emergency or black-out situation. Marga mused on this thought for a while. Perhaps there was something of value inside the Shuttle Control Room? Odd place to stash something worth stealing, but the experienced thief had seen odder. Well, only one way to find out. Pushing herself to her feet and letting out more curses, Marga walked into the room. She surveyed it like she was preforming a heist. She grinned, anticipation rising at what she might come across.