Chapter 4: Borderline

[Kauria]

Rucha awoke in a sparse cabin shrouded in darkness. Her shoulders shook with panicked, ragged breath.
Small strips of colored light wedged between wall and ceiling gave her enough light to slowly see her surroundings in grainy monochrome. No one there. A dream, then.
She let her head fall into her hands.

Chapter 4 Start.

The ship was still, the only sound the noises of some distant inner workings. The glow of Rucha's handheld filled the room, and her gun lay on the bed beside her. She rubbed her face and put the holographic computer aside, picking up the pistol. Her fingers traced the rim of its barrel, and once again she felt the cold pressure from her dream, of the ring of metal pressed against her back. She shuddered and holstered the weapon, picking up her clean jacket along the way.
The pile of clothes from the night before was gone.
Huh.

The Ceretai glanced both ways down the darkened hallway. The others were either still asleep or had left already. It was hard to tell in a place where day and night didn't exist. Ariaka, she supposed, had probably barely stopped working at running the ship.
From what she could recall, breakfast would probably be either a beige slab or the meat of whatever bizarre creature they had managed to get on board. Had they actually collected any food on Zenith? She couldn't remember, a near-sleepless night muddling her thoughts.
Rucha clicked her way over to a terminal and asked, "Where can I find the food, again?"

[Nohiki]

Door at one side of the corridor opened and Ariaka walked out, pushing a small cart in front of her. "Good morning. What you picked up on Zenith needs to be processed first, but i've found some delicious astronaut food." she said, giving Rucha a plastic plate with few concentrate bricks packed in thin paper, "And of course, high quality tap water." she handed over a bottle. "Your clothes have been washed..." she said and handed her crewmate a basket, "And moved from unorganized pile into something one can look at. That also led me to making these -" she said and passed a white card with black stripe, pointing at the lock panel at the door, "because when i think about it, sneaking into your room to fetch your clothes would probably be considered very creepy were i not an android."

[Morty]

Meanwhile, Kiruza was up past her irridescent breathing fronds in disbelief. She had barely ceased watching the two ships explode when the medical emergency alarm sounded.
Emergency in Pod 68!
Kiruza tore herself away from the monitor and slithered over to Tal's pod, the screen on the side describing the critical state of the Anero'nolmi's health. Unfortunately, the pod was not attuned to his race's medical requirements. It had probably been built to house Ceretai, possibly, said Kiruza's brain, in a fit of useless trivia. She didn't know why it hadn't occur to her to identify a pod designed for his species. At the time, it seemed a broken arm was the worst medical emergency they would have to face. "Computer, access database on Anero'nolmi medical care." she intoned evenly, lifting the lid off the stasis pod with all four arms to assess the pilot's condition by hand while the computer across the room listed off symptoms in an automated voice.
"Heart attack? How do I treat those?" asked the Shis while she fought to remain composed. The monitor brought up a picture of a device she somewhat recognized. She thought she had seen it before somewhere-- there! Across the room was a glass case with a futuristic contraption housed inside. Kiruza dragged herself over and placed her chitinous palm on the glass, activating the personnel recognition. The glass case popped open with a hiss, allowing her to grab the apparatus and slither back to the pilot's pod with speed. With the visual aid from the monitor guiding her through the steps Kiruza managed to activate the contraption's primary function, freeing the two fluid-filled needles from their holsters and lightly applying them to the Anero'nolmi's neck and arm. The Shis tensed as she waited for the supposed medicine to take effect, unsure of how she would feel if it didn't actually work. For one thing, it would be the end of her 30-minute career as the ship's only doctor. Maybe that was a good thing, she was pretty sure whatever career path she'd chosen had never required her to react fast to an emergency or have encyclopedic knowledge of the various race's medical conditions. She slumped down in one of the open pods, splashing water on her gills to slow her aerator, which was now whirring like a top.

[Zetherus]

Tal'set's heart has begun to slow down as the medications were taking affect and slowly decreased the intensity of his haywire organ. He had stopped shaking and he had once again went back to a peaceful sleep, at least his body in reality was showing no distress but his dreams is hard to explain what he is feeling.

OCC: Congratulations Morty you still keep your medical status. ;D

[Kauria]

Rucha looked blankly at the items Ariaka offered, then laughed. "Maybe just a little," she said, accepting all her stuff. "But that's really not the only reason I'm glad you're an android. You did all this while we were sleeping? Where would this ship be without you?" She dropped her eyebrows. "Don't answer that, actually. I'd hug you or something, but my hands are a little full. Is anyone else up yet?"

[Nohiki]

"Just doing my job." Ariaka smiled, "I don't think Kiruza went to sleep either, other than that everyone's out." she shrugged. "I've parked at more or less stable orbit around the star in this system so i can do some repairs. You've got any plans?" The android said, walking back to fetch some more food for the Shis.

[Midnightmoon]

With his packs slung over one shoulder Lee exited the lab, "Ow." He grunted sleepily as he exited the room, wincing at the light in the hall and slipping his goggles back into place. After the horror of the self destruct episode and the after relief of not dieing, Lee had gone back to work fixing the room. Aside from the body, the broken cyrochamber and the smashed debree it was now in working condition. He slumped down the hall and bunped into the doorframe of what smelled like the mess hall. "First food, then rest later." He walked over to the machine that he knew had food, dropping the bags on a table as he passed them. Pressing a button a nutrition bar popped out. Too tired to pick it up he speared it and pried the wrapping off to nibble at the brick. He then slumped into a chair by his backs and sighed. With the food he was starting to feal better.

[Nohiki]

Ariaka walked into the mess hall, whistling. Suddenly she stopped. Something was different. With a long tune, she looked to the right, seeing what was left of the hermit alien that she didn't really knew. "Hi there. I see you already helped yourself to some food. I customized a room for you, you look like you could use a bed." she said, walking closer carefully, as if not to scare him off like some animal. And shower. Too bad we can't waste water on that yet. she thought for herself ans she approached and chemical sensors gave her a warnign about sudden change in air quality.

[Midnightmoon]

"Hey, it's one of the bomb squad." Lee scowled but then he shook his head, "Sorry, just a late... night. I was doing some fixing up in that lab you found me in. By the way," He looked right at her now setting aside his half eaten bar, "what's wrong with you? You keep shutting down."

[Nohiki]

Ariaka imitated a sigh and pulled up a chair for herself. "Wish i knew. I have no idea why but i keep seeing pieces of the dead person's life. Perhaps i knew her? I don't know." she said. It's the fact that i remember her being BLOWN UP that frightens me. Was i there? Did i cause that? she thought for herself. "What i do know is that the first shut down destroyed one logic unit, and after that i only had what you might call seizures. I think it's safe to assume that unit had fault and once it was damaged, my system bypassed it becoming more stable." she made an explanation up, not believing it herself, but it might be enough for the guy to stop inquiring. She somehow wasn't comfortable discussing this manner.

[Midnightmoon]

"I would say replace the damaged unit and re-upload the data but it seams like you wold be reluctant to do that." Lee responded thoughtfully. "Hmmm... ah, well, I guess we have priorities though. As long as you stay functional I guess it doesn't matter too much."

[Nohiki]

"Well, for one i actually seem to function normally without it. The other reason is that the circuitry is sealed inside my torso without any access. Guess it was planned as non-maintenance. As far as data goes, i was thinking about that, but there's nothing in the ship's computer. Nothing at all. As far as i know, noone on this ship should remember a damn thing." she said and got up. "Well, i have to get the Shis to bed, please don't be stupid and do that as well. We should be relatively safe from attack but i'm not trusting our equipment that much and if you understand machinery, i could use a hand later with the third engine." she finished the conversation, picked up the food and headed for the stasis chamber.

"Hey. Poor man's restaurant sent this." Ariaka joked when she arrived. "How are you holding up, shouldn't you be dying of sleep deprivation by now?" she smiled, looking around the lab for an x-ray.

[Morty]

Kiruza lifted her head from the corpse she was tending to. She's spent the last ten hours identifying the bodies and moving them to cold storage before the fluid in the pods ran out and they began to decompose. A grim task perhaps, but she was having trouble allowing herself to be bothered by the sight of another species's corpse. Thankfully there were no other Shis crew members to be laid to rest. She washed her hands, gills reddening, strangely embarassed at having been caught at her work. "I don't feel tired." she said, accepted the strange food gratefully. "Hunger, on the other three hands..." She didn't really know what to say. The pilot almost died, thought you might like to know...
So I cleaned up those bodies that we left lying around...
"The ships that blew up, who were they?" she asked, her metal voice unable to imply, if she felt it, any tone of curiosity or concern.

[Zetherus]

The commando fell to sleep as his armor was being charged and forgot all about it. The generator started to make clicking noises then to start rattling when his armor reached full power capacity. He woke when it started to shake violently and sparks started to shoot out of it's cooling fan. "Oh vuck!" (F*ck in his language) He yelled and attempted to turn it off to have it explode in his face when he got close to the power button. The loud pop echoed down the corridor to the mess hall as he covered his face from the shrapnel bouncing off of the under part of his right forearm armor. "Well That was fun and stupid at the same time. Now my armor will have to run off it's own generators for the time being and get this one fixed soon damn it." He growled as he began to pick up the pieces and throw them in a engineering bag nearby.

[Nohiki]

"One appeared to be 'ours', whatever that is, the other was enemy. We received an incomplete set of coordinates to something, hopefully to answers, but one digit is missing, so that leaves us 8 jumps tops away." the android reported. "You know the room has environment control unit. You might not need rest but i noticed you like the air much more humid then it is here. What about the dead? Any anomalies? I mean other than that your and the other's pods were the only one with independent power source?" she asked, the question coming to her out of the blue. Only now she realized that the ship was probably built by and for human use. No controls were in the universal language, all were in English, and the corridors were definitely not made for life forms like Tal'Set. Ariaka looked around, all the red lights on the pods still on. "This palce gives me the creeps. To think that there is probably at least one more like that... uuuh!"