Cold Realisation – Just chillin'
by HoD Ro' Matlh & Beq Marcus Quexana & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene

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Title   Just chillin'
Mission   Cold Realisation
Author(s)   HoD Ro' Matlh & Beq Marcus Quexana & Sogh Germite Ephilom & Soghla' HIchop Matlh & Soghla' Terri (Tell) Hope & Soghla' Jared & Soghla' Marie St. Helene
Posted   Sun Jun 09, 2013 @ 9:55am
Location   Mess Hall
Timeline   While hiding
The crew floated in the mess hall. A few chemical lights that Jared had produced floated in their own tubes amongst them. May'Bel was fiddling with one of them.

"How do you make it brighter?" he asked the room in general. "There's no switches or dials!"

"No, it's a chemical reaction," Jared replied. "You can't turn it up or down. They'll never be as bright as one of the powered lights. Although you can reinvigorate the reaction with kinetic energy, so if they're getting really dim just give them a shake and they'll..."

He winced as May'Bel banged the transparent tube firmly on the hull beside him. Several times. It brightened a little.

"...Or you could do that. They're transparent aluminium, so they can take a few knocks. I made them for Klingons."

He locked the helmet of his suit in place, causing an audible hiss as the suit pressurised. Jared was too small for the armoured HEVA suits, but the older flexible suits could be tucked in and tied and made to fit him. It just made him look like some kind of baggy plush toy.

Each had taken a turn looking out the view-port till they saw what Cha'a' had identified.

HoS'a' rumbled, "It's a ship, certainly, though the shape is too indistinct in the darkness to make out clearly what type."

"Or what it is doing here," Ro' added. "At best case, it is a derelict of a long dead race that is and will remain dormant. At worst it is a booby trap and we are in just as much danger in the asteroid as we would be amongst those...things."

Cha'a', not usually part of these meetings but included since it was she who spotted the craft, "Could it not be damaged, or simply hiding as we are?"

Ro' nodded, "It could, which might mean we have an ally. It seems as if we will need to go and find out. We can't use transporters, so it will be a quick walk outside. I want to hear people's opinions. Many of you have far more experience at sneaking into places stealthily than I do."

"I can rig people's suits with simple pressurised gas canisters, to act like basic jets and let you move about in hard vacuum," Jared suggested. "Wouldn't have much more than 100 seconds of propulsion, but they'd barely register a blip on most sensors. Use them in short spurts and let yourself drift, and they should do the job easily enough."

"I have used such things before." Marcus added.

"We'd need to rely on Melee and basic projectile weapons, though." May'Bel commented. "I have a single-shot mechanical spear-gun amongst my things that was a souvenir, but not much else that uses no power."

Ro' noted the use of the Pronoun. Jared had said, 'they', menaing he did not expect to be taken on the mission, while May'bel had said, 'we', meaning he did.

Marie was standing very still, her fingertips pressed to the side of her temples, her forehead creased in concentration.

Hariba Garia,” she said. She turned to Jared. “I’m getting pictures of an ancient race known as the Hariba Garia,” she said. “It’s indistinct and with the nanites in ‘regeneration phase’ I can’t make any more out. I don’t think they’re from this part of space but they colonised here millennia past.”

“Wait!” she said. “It means ‘the outcast’ or ‘the displaced’ or something like that.”

"But the question is..." Marcus said meditatively, "cast out by whom? And, more importantly, why?"

HoS'a' frowned, "Hariba Garia? That... that sounds Maego."

Everyone turned to look at the giant Klingon. He shrugged, "I have done some study of the local powers. The Maego were easy because they are telepathic. That term though is... well... it refers to an ancient beast... flies, generates unimaginable heat."

Ro' breathed heavily, "Maego and Kapular are involved in a bitter war very close to this area of space. In fact the Kapular border is uncomfortably close. So far the Klingon Empire has not been drawn into such a petty conflict. If it is Meago, then they are probably holding up the same as we are. It is still worth having a look. They may be damaged or injured."

"HIchop, you'll lead the team. Tell, get an engineering kit. Germite, there may be injured. Marie, if it is a hulk, find some stuff we can claim when the fleet has gone past. May'bel, break out swords... and take the new Beq; what's your name? Remember, no use of power beyond suit respirators and these glow sticks. Don't even use communicators. Any questions?"

"Communication will be tricky without suit comms," Jared added. "Remember, in a hard vacuume you'll need to either touch your helmets together, use sign language, or write on something. And don't forget universal translators are off, so it'll be hard communicating with other species."

"A screwdriver, a hammer and a spanner. I reckon I can do a lot of damage with these?" said Tell, holding up the very large items.

“Just bang it with your head,” Marie advised Tell as she stepped past the engineer. “That’s a much blunter instrument.”

Tell nodded in agreement and stowed her lethal weapons away. "You can always knock em dead or bore them to death with your funny languages."

"I'll give you each a purple and a green flare," Jared said. "Light one in a visible window if you need to signal. Purple one means trouble. Green means all is well, but you could use some help."