Chapter 4: Borderline

[Awesomoman]

Lance couldn't argue. Experience is what makes a good soldier, and since that head injury he had lost all of it. Was he even fit to wear the title of Space Marine? An old quote suddenly appeared in his mind. "A suspicious mind, is a healthy mind." Lance pulled out the H9 again. Then attached a flamer to the bottom of it, and a mini rocket launcher to the right side. He looked at it and laughed. "And there's no kill, like over kill."

[Morty]

"Ah yes, I relocated the bodies to the cold locker. I believe I filed their possessions in the green lockers on the far right side of the lab." said Kiruza over the comm. "I'm afraid I'm not capable of moving our patient, would someone lend a hand?" she inquired, hooking up the chemical cylinders to an IV stand for transport.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka walked over to the bridge and started preparing everything for departure. "Outbound shuttle in 30 minutes, repeat, outbound planet flight in 30 minutes. All attending crew report to hangar bay 5 minutes prior to takeoff." she shouted into ship-wide and started wiring the place up. The delay on the final descend is going to be annoying, so she did a scan of the planet and preprogrammed atmospheric entry and landing procedures to be accessible to the crew by a push of a button in case something went wrong with the remote.

[Kauria]

Rucha sprinted into the lab, collided with a table, and started slamming the green lockers open. She picked through the items and pulled out anything that seemed wearable, as well as a few containers that appeared to be filled with some sort of colorful pigment.
"Who's coming down, again?" she asked into the comm, sorting the items into sloping piles. There were a handful of helmets, but none of them fit her, and there seemed to be a shocking lack of hats.
Finding a robe with more sleeves than even Kiruza had arms, she tore off several gauzy strips and tied one of them them about her neck and plates like a headscarf. Rucha pulled on a pair of heavy-duty gloves with the right number of fingers, and gathered up what she had decided the others might be able to wear. Balancing the paint containers on top of the pile, she edged out the door.
First to the mess, then back to my quarters again for the bag. I'm getting to know these hallways maybe a little too well already.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka went to the mess hall and found the biggest cart available, putting some dry ice on it and rushed towards the stasis chamber. "All right let's load him up! Hook him on the meds the second he's on the cart." she said to Kiruza, setting the cart next to the pod. she opened the door and caught Tal'set who fell out, slowly placing him on the cart and surrounding him with dry ice bricks wrapped in cloth. "Quickly." She said, already back behind the cart ready to push the patient to the hangar.

[Morty]

Kiruza stood by with the IV needles in hand, which she tacked to Tal's arm as soon as the android was ready. She placed the canisters on the under-cart and slithered to the side to allow the cart to pass. She watched, perplexed, as Rucha rifled through the boxes of carefully-filed objects. She couldn't fathom what putting on a few pieces of cloth would do to hide their identities. It's not like they even had any, that they could remember.
A Shis wearing clothes would probably just stand out. She might be able to do an adequate makeup job with the bottles of pigment Rucha seemed to have uncovered, though...

[Nohiki]

Ariaka raced with the cart to the hangar, using it as a scooter. When she was there, she quickly carried the Anero'Nolmi to the makeshift cryo pod and engaged it. Checking his pulse, she sighed with relief. Alive. "Everyone mount up, you can disguise in-flight!" she yelled and ran back to the bridge to guid them, giving everyone instructions on the buttons she programmed in case anyone needed to land the suttle manually for whatever reason. Then she sat down on the bridge, ready to guide the shuttle out and use croatoan's stardrive to jump it to the planet. Then it was 50:50 for maintaining her contorl over the flight, as the delay in signal transmission might be too large, in which case the crew would have to take over.

[Kauria]

Rucha dumped everything she was carrying in the shuttle, raced over to grab her bag, and dropped it on a seat near the front. She hung out of the shuttle to speak for a moment. Activating her comm, she asked, "Ariaka? Since this shuttle isn't exactly deep-space-travel quality, people are going to know we came from somewhere else. If authorities ask, what should we tell them?"

[Nohiki]

"That is an excellent question I don't have an answer to." said Ariaka, "I'll try long-range sensors, hopefully there's some tourist transport present. If not, I'm.... Im.... I'm gonna make a big bang on the sky, say it was your ship and the shuttle is an evac. I know it's weak but it's better than, i dunno, jail." the android shrugged, "It would at least explain Tal's injuries. Ready to go?" she asked, finalizing the program that would allow hernto use the stardrive on something else than Croatoan.

[Kauria]

"Right." Rucha withdrew into the shuttle and strapped herself in. "I'm ready to go. Is that guy—what'shisname—the Lee guy coming?"

[Nohiki]

"Shuttle to the planet departing in 1 minute. All remaining crew please assemble on the bridge." said Ariaka to ship-wide comm. She'd like for Lee to stay though, as he seemed to be skilled with ship's technology and they needed the third engine fixed.

[Midnightmoon]

After the rucus with the intruder and then who knows after that Lee had just sat slumped over the table for a few seconds. "Ugh, harunga-halee'keh. Too much done, too much to do, too little information." he mumbled and retreated to "his" room.

When an announcement came on about a inhabited planet and how they were landing he just lay in his bed. He thought that he was going to just lie there without answering but thought better of it. With a sigh he grabbed his data pad he had taken off from the end table and hit a button. "Yah, I'll just be staying here. I was doing other stuff while you guys slept so I'm going to catch up on that. I'll also do some fixing up when I wake. Hopefully you'll all be back by then. Sallah ah Hindi." Cutting the connection he tossed the pad back onto the end table and curled up under the thin covers, quickly dozing off.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka huffed in frustration when she heard Lee's response to her call, and while she understood the need for sleep, the need of organizing their efforts was almost as pressing as the former one. She just hit the button and the shuttle door slammed shut. "Shuttle two en route. One minute to jump. ETA to the planet: One hour. I'm not jumping you too close or they could pick up the rift. Remember, yellow button is reentry, red is landing. If i lose control at any time, you'll have to find a place to land yourselves." she said and engaged the remote, trying to maneuver the shuttle around Croatoan for a bit. It seemed to be working rather well. "See you on the other side... Hopefully. Jump in 3, 2, 1, MARK!" counted the android and a flash of light enveloped the shuttle, spitting it a good deal of distance away. "Allright, it appears as if the remote is using subspace channel. I get you in real time." Ariaka reported, seeing the shuttle react to her commands immediately after she moved the controls. "Now for the cover story." she said and started scanning for tourist liners. "Got it, you are from Starliner Asimov traveling from the world Vega Prime. Prepare for landing." she said as she pointed the shuttle 30 degrees down. The atmosphere was relatively dense compared to Zenith and the planet seemed to have stronger gravity field. Firing the maneuvering thrusters, the shuttle decelerated and slowly touched down. "Periodic contacts each 4 hours. You don't make the call, i come in and storm the place. Ariaka out." she said and terminated the subspace link.

She checked the computers on the artificial gravity on the ship. If the rest of them had to come down there, they better be adjusted for the higher load. She figured she'd have to turn off the power for a few seconds and decided there's nothing that can go wrong if the power comes back up, and at least one engine was undamaged, so it was OK. She entered the commands and the ship went black. In 15 seconds it rebooted, higher gravity present. An alert caught her attention: EMERGENCY WAKEUP AT CHAMBER 1. "Oooh no..." she said for herself and ran towards the stasis chamber, expecting a fight.

[Zetherus]

Keilumtol waited for hours in the cold without air waiting for the chance to get out unnoticed. As he stared blankly through the glass for his moment of freedom. He saw the the power in the sector suddenly power off releasing the locks on the pod and launching him to his feat. The soldier's quick reflexes let him land to his feat without hesitation. "This must be a mistake! I wonder if this was intended to happen?" He whispered to himself as the commando looked around his surroundings. He caught sight of his armor piled up in a cart near the far side of the stasis chamber and jogged up to it. As he began moving the pieces in the cart in search of his memory base and weapons projector he could hear metal footsteps echoing on the other side of the blast door he was next to. The pieces were found and with that, Keilumtol salvaged the rest of his equipment and dissembled armor with the projector then turned and ran the opposite direction with the dagger still sticking out his belly. He was on the far side of the cryo lab trying to open the door with his strength and hands but easily it started to frustrate him with that blasted android in pursuit of him once more.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka slowed down when she saw the door were still shut. She turned on her translating program, hoping to finally getting more information without hurting the ancient Anero'Nolmi any further. She guessed he was trying to break free from the sounds of the door, but they were made to withstand decompression or explosions, and since the commando appeared to be low on power, she doubted he could break free.

"I hear you're awake, good. Quit scratching my door and pull up a chair or something. Frankly i am quite tired of having to outsmart you and i'm running out of ideas so i'd rather think you're not a threat anymore. Can we agree on that?" she said with the best translation she could make and leaned on the wall opposite to the door, but with her hand on a stunner none the less.