Chapter 1: Survival instincts

[Kauria]

"Thanks." The Ceretai steadied herself, and then sat down abruptly before anything else could happen. Relief flooded through her as she realized she could both speak and recognize the words being used around her. It took a few seconds longer to understand. She shivered, feeling uncomfortably helpless. Haltingly, she asked, "So nobody else knows what's going on, either?"

[Morty]

Kiruza returned from briefly prowling the corridors connecting to the cryogenics lab. She noted the new arrivals in the room; a military cyborg of some sort, and a freshly awakened crew member. "I believe I may have some medical training, I know how to use the equipment in the lab if it comes to that. Here, let me see your wrist." said the Shis, bustling past the two armored life forms to apply the Ceretai with an IV drip solution*. "Are you injured, soldier? You seem to have sustained damage, unless that dark red liquid is not what I think it is." she asked, turning to the more heavily equipped of the new arrivals.

((*PS: It's antifreeze.))

[Awesomoman]

"Well, my head hurts like hell if thats what you're asking." He replied rubbing his head. He brought his hand down to see his glove covered in red. "Wow, am i really bleeding that bad?"

[Morty]

"Yes." Kiruza's tinny automated voice replied flatly. "Allow me to assess the damage. At least I can stop it bleeding for now." she crackled, brandishing a cloth damp with antiseptic in one of her four insect-like hands. She had to rear up more than usual to even meet the space marine's level. "Are there any other wounds I should be aware of?" she asked while dabbing the cyborg's injured cranium unceremoniously.

[Kauria]

The Ceretai watched the Shis care for the armored man, and relaxed slightly, despite the alarming surroundings. Literally. She glanced up at the ceiling as the klaxon blared again. A warmth seeped through her veins. Perhaps it was just the result of . . . whatever the medic had done to her, but something about the whole situation seemed exciting. She pushed herself up and glanced over at the robot. "Have a name?" she asked, half hoping that she could remember her own. Something else occurred to her. "And shouldn't we be doing something?"

[Nohiki]

"I'm Ariaka. First order of business is to get as many of you as we can back to work... Rucha Coren." she said, reading from the label on the stasis pod. "I suppose you don't remember anything either. look around, hopefully something will pop out WHAT THE!" shouted Ariaka as the ship shook violently. The atmosphere started running out of the room. Ariaka sprintjumped out of the room into the nearest hatch. There was a huge crack running through the wall into the open space. Unfortunately, the controls on the safe side were busted. She quickly moved through and sealed the door behind her. The others were safe, but she needed another way in. She engaged the magnets in her boots and climbed outside the crack, assessing the damage. She will have to get the repair drones to work on this. Ariaka was running low on power. The android engaged wireless and tried to contact the others: "This is Ariaka, anyone hearing me? Im outside the ship, looking at the hull for the first time. There are several holes where the shield failed, we are venting atmosphere. Marine, i need you to go to the bridge and sit in the pilot chair. Your implants should allow you to control it. Order emergency seals in the damaged compartments, over." Ariaka knew that her message got to them, but with the memory loss in all crewmen, she didn't hope for a reply.

Instead she proceeded around the ship, hoping for an airlock, as her battery was approaching critical. Them she found something exciting. "This is Ariaka again, I think I found a drone bay, I should be ok power Wiese and be on inter com shortly. What is your status?"

[Awesomoman]

The marine wasted no time. He slipped his helmet back on and charged through the ship to the bridge. When he arrived he quickly sat in the chair, everything lite up. "Scanning," a voice came on. "Confirmed, L.T. Lance Komar. Please state orders." He hesitated for a moment. What did it just call him? He shook his head and got back to work. "Activate all emergency seals in heavily damaged areas." A confirmation noise sounded, he tapped his helmet where his ear was turning on a comlink. "Ariaka, I activated the seals. What next?"

[Nohiki]

A shuttle pulled over right in front of the bridge. Ariaka waved to Lance from within. "If you could try and send repair drones to the damaged shield generators it would be good. I'm going to treat the hull. Go check on the others but be prepared for anything, you might have to engage the stardrive and jump the ship. The coordinates are preprogrammed, all you need is former capain's activation code. I have it on a sticky note on the radar screen." the android explained. Then the engines of the shuttle engaged and she flown to where was the most damaged part of the hull.

On her way, she could see much of the ship. She thought it might calm the others down if she ralayed what she was seeing. "Shuttle 2 to Croatoan, because that's what the nameplate says, whatever it means. I'm doing a flyby of the ship. It looks like a sturdy build. It appears we are no longer leaking any air. the ship is close to a kilometer long but from what i can see so far the structure could hold off several more attacks before breaking up." she said, flying over the hangar bays. "Oh this is new. It appears we have bayful of combat drones i wasn't aware of before. That slightly increases our survivability i guess." she continued, finally getting to the engines. "Croatoan, i think i identified the source of our trouble. We are running only on one out of three engines. That must be wreaking havoc on the ship's power grid. I'll see if i can restart at least one of them. I'll report in 30 minutes, commencing EVA. Ariaka out." she finished and took the repair gear in the shuttle, plus some sweet fully charged batpacks to keep her powered. Ariaka was on the place in few seconds. "Score one for the robots. No need for airlocks and oxygen." she said for herself and herself only, as no sound transmitted in the vacuum of space. She proceeded to one of the two cold engines. She recognized them as Ion drives, not wondering anymore why the ship's top speed is so poor. It would be poor even with all the engines running. She deactivated her magnetic shoes and used the thrusters on the EVA gear to fly herself over to the reactor controls.

After five minutes of wiring and typing, she closed the control panel and returned to the shuttle, linking it's computer into the mainframe. It took her ten minutes to finally get to the engine controls. "OK, now where are the keys?" Ariaka asked herself. She loaded the engine control code into her own system to understand it faster. "AHA!" she added, one of her fingers opening into a communication connector. She plugged herself in and started the ignition sequence. The lights on the engine flashed, then the inside started blinking, until it finally hurled out a stream of ions. She could see power returning to the ship as lights in the halls came on-line and the ever present red glow of the emergency lights vanished. "Croatoan, Ariaka. We're running 2/3 engines!" she shouted, happiness noticeable in her otherwise so far emotionless voice. A smile appeared on her plastic facemask as the shields flashed and extended over the damaged areas. "I think this will do for now, heading back to the barn. You can unseal the ship, the shield should hold the air inside and i'm gonna need a way in." she reported and the shuttle took off.

[Awesomoman]

Lance ordered the drones and got out of the chair. He got up and stared out into space (literally). Lance Komar, Thats about all he knew. His life, any friends and family, everything was missing. That was when he first noticed the sword on his back. Taking it off he quickly noticed the craftsmanship, every detail was done to perfection on this blade, customized completely for him, and he had no clue why. His thoughts were finally interrupted by Ariaka coming back on. "Hmm? Unseal the ship. got it." He put his sword back on and walked back to the seat. "Release emergency seals."

[Nohiki]

Ariaka walked into the ship through the shuttle bay airlock. Another distress beacon caught her attention. She thought about calling the Shis to assist, but then she chose to assess the situation first. She walked in it's direction, finally arriving at locked door. then it happened. A memory flashback, showing a human hand typing the code. She stood there, only realizing her body mimicked heavy breathing after few seconds. "What is wrong with me? what was that?!" she yelled, rapidly typing the code and storming into the science lab behind. She stopped with a horrified gasp. The lab was thrashed by explosion, and right in front of her was a burnt body of female human, a weird stasis pod behind it. Then another memory popped, featuring the human hands working in said lab, then being caught by the explosion and everything going dark. She screamed and held her head, as her programming was generating lot of erors, wreaking havoc on her systems, including the communications. She hoped somebody will find her as her body went into hibernation mode, falling to the ground.

OOC: @midnight: Feel free to use the stasis pod if you'd like, if not i have alternate scenario for it, no worries.

[Kauria]

Rucha pulled herself over to the control terminal as soon as Ariaka had stopped talking, and her fingers began to skitter across the holographic keyboard, hesitantly at first, but with increasing confidence. "That's strange. We're not publicly registered. This doesn't seem like a military ship . . ." she half-asked the Shis still in the room with her.
Something else on the screen caught her eye. "Hang on. We've got a distress signal near the shuttle bay. Ariaka, you're not too far away from there, right?" A too-long silence answered. "Oh geez. Computer, vis—" She cut herself off and swallowed. The Ceretai's fingers curled, and she pushed herself away from the terminal.
"Something's wrong. You do it."

[Morty]

Kiruza gave the Ceretai a quizzical look as she took her place at the monitor. "Computer, visualize area of distress signal." she ordered, calmly. The screen flickered and displayed the scene of a wrecked laboratory; by the scorchmarks on the walls and the detritus littering the chamber it had last been the site of a formidable explosion. More alarmingly was the burnt body of a human female that Ariaka appeared to be kneeling in front of. "Oh dear. Do you think that human was dear to her?" the Shis asked, saddened. From a few moments of watching the screen told her that the android was not moving anymore. "Ariaka, are you there?" she hissed tentatively, attempting to establish a comlink with the motionless automaton.

[Kauria]

Rucha couldn't understand exactly why she'd pulled away from the terminal, but something had seemed more appropriate about letting the medic do it. Trying to explain it to herself seemed hopelessly silly now.
Ariaka wasn't going to answer, and that meant someone had to go down there. Goals were good, particularly when she had no idea what she should have been doing otherwise. "This stuff is mine, right?" She opened the container beside what had been her stasis pod, and pulled out a pack and a pistol. She didn't bother opening the bag, but pulled it onto her back anyways. Her fingers found their positions on the gun, and her feelings of uncertainty vanished completely. "I'm going to get her. Three questions, though: How do I get there from here, are you coming, and does the marine know about this?"

[Morty]

Kiruza turned away from fussing at the screen to observe Rucha's actions. "Perhaps you should wait. Apart from your firearm there is no indication that either of us has military training." she said evenly. "I will contact the marine. I do not wish to leave my post at this point, perhaps he is better equipped to dealing with this." She said, as she opened another window on the console, making another attempt to patch a link between herself and the marine. "Lieutennant? The android Ariaka seems to have unexpectedly gone into hibernation, her coordinates are X19 Y34. Awaiting your judgement on this matter. Over and out."
Then she pulled up a map of the ship on the holoscreen, tracing a path from the cryogenics lab to the lab where Ariaka was situated. "If we were to go and retrieve her, this hallway would likely be the fastest route to her location. But I repeat, we don't know what's out there, I think it would be safest to remain here until the ship is secure."

[Awesomoman]

Lance stood up and responded. "Normally i would agree, but Ariaka seems to know more about this ship than us, shes too valuable to leave." He headed back to the cryo lab. "What gear do we have? We need to be as prepared as possible."