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Security Office

A Mayyoran Security Officer who was sitting at a desk jumped up when he saw HKR-07 enter the Security Office holding what looked like a dead Human. When HKR called out to him, though, he realized that the droid was not a danger and that the Human was only unconscious. As he approached HKR, further inspection of the Human revealed that he was in fact just incredibly drunk. He breathed a sigh of relief.

"You can place him on that bench there," he said as he pointed to a small row of benches on the wall by the Security Office entrance.

Main Bridge

A loud pop came from a vent, causing Paeban to quickly turn toward toward the noise and ready himself in an attack stance. The black smoke, clattering vent cover, and benign-looking floating robot that introduced itself as "QWERTY" led Paeban to realize nobody was in danger -- that is, nobody but the robot. It calling him by his given name was another strike against it. With the message from the Council of Nations, though, he waited for the Commander's reaction before he threw it off the Bridge.

Deep Space Wintreath, Security Office

HKR-07

HKR turned to the bench the officer motioned towards. As it turned to drop the drunk it remotely accessed the backdoor it had left when it last entered this office. The sweeper was finished and all relevant files had been copied. It downloaded everything the sweeper had found and then did its best to scrub all traces of its presence. All this was done before HKR was finished turning around. It dumped David the drunk on the bench and wordlessly left the security office.

It was making its way back to its room. The memory of its first encounter with David Anderson was still playing on its mind. It would scan the files it had taken later. Right now, HKR was still reeling from the realization.....

"Of course," he responded to the Commander. "Thank you, sir." Just then Zerick's communicator got his attention.

"Engineering Team Charlie to Lieutenant Zerick."

He accepted the comm link and responded with "Go ahead."

"Sir, we've detected an explosion in Hangar Bay One. No damage registered, but Aki Tel'Yorak is in there experimenting with something."

The lieutenant pulled back his lips in a silent snarl. He had been working almost nonstop to get the station fixed up for the last four weeks, and any more setbacks would be unacceptable to him. "Thank you for notifying me," he said with a bit of a growl before closing the comm link and opening a new comm link with Hangar Bay 1. "Lieutenant Zerick to Aki Tel'Yorak. Aki, I swear if you damage any of the deck plating I'll shove my furry foot up your tiny lizard ass! Whatever you're doing can wait for engineering oversight. One more explosion, and I'll have security come pick you up." Without waiting for a response, he closed the comm link.

And like it was cued for a movie, a robot bursts from the vent with, you guessed it, another explosion. Whether or not the robot was hostile wasn't a concern to Zerick. It just caused an explosion in the vent. One of the many vents that he was responsible for making sure was in peak working condition for the crew. "OI!" escaped from his lips as he grabbed the nearest heavy object and chucked it at the floating robot. "NO MORE EXPLOSIONS ON MY STATION!"

Main Bridge, Deep Space Wintreath, Maigar System

LST: 0:54:20, 05/14/7051 Mayyoran Calendar

Shortly after he announced himself and was in the process of consuming a wonderful chocolate chip cookie, his sensors detected a rather heavy object being thrown at him. Now, many might not know this fact, but QWERTY is a certified war veteran with many distinguishing awards. So, the droid simply blinked slightly away from the object, avoiding its trajectory. Sadly, the heavy object happened to head straight forward to land on some poor chap behind him.

QWERTY loudly protested, "EYYY! I'M WALKIN' HERE, I'M WALKIN' HERE! Careful of the merchandise!" His eye blinked in frowning disapproval. "You really ought to be more careful, there's a lot of valuable data up here." He projected a holographic hand which pointed towards himself. "Any damage could end up deleting that data."

"Besides, if you don't like the explosions, it doesn't matter. Your ventilation system is a piece of shit right now. It's in a right sorry state, with mold and mildew - God knows how that got there - and collapsed ducts. There needs to be quite a lot of work on this station."

That gave QWERTY a brilliant idea. "I mean, I could help. With all this data." He pointed at himself again. "But, in that case, we'd have to arrange some sort of deal." He clarified this fact further by projecting holographic fire onto his outstretched hand.

"I don't know how you found all that in there, and I don't appreciate you insulting the sanitation of my teams. You can take your deal and shove it up your data port."

And after that the Lieutenant went to the injured person and helped them up before escorting them off the bridge to the medical bay.

Aki finally gets back to Lishku. "I daresay my good sir, you are a genius. This will do perfectly,". He shouts orders to his staff and the chattering increases to almost unbearable levels as the Gorram use Lishku's biocogitator in their newest design. Aki beckons Lishku over to the final product that is currently displayed holographically. "Does this look about right?"

"Oh, please, I didn't come up with it! I just made them."

Lishku looks at the design for a few seconds.

"You might want to add something to cycle in new coolant fluid inside the cogitator, but otherwise that looks like it should work."

Main Bridge, Deep Space Wintreath

Commander Kusulk was quite perplexed by the sudden bang and arrival of QWERTY onto the bridge, and was not particularly amused. 

"QWERTY, though it surprises me that you have this message, you know that XCOM was discontinued officially after the Declaration of Federation, quite some time ago.  Additionally, I will certainly make arrangements to meet with all of the valued civilian personnel on this station once we fully restore power and other systems.  For now though, I would ask that you please leave the bridge, unless you're wanting to enlist, of course."
Looking at his engineering and security chiefs, he game them a nod to indicate that the strange old robot could be safely brought off the bridge. 

Medical Bay, Deep Space Wintreath, Kry's Office
Sol was incredibly bored. Stay on your shelf, don't get hurt, don't let anyone but other personnel see you. The usual message. But surely exploring a little bit never hurt anyone. And Kry had left, so the only person in the main room was a janitor that hurt himself. Silly creature. Sol highly doubted they would stop her from wandering out.

Carefully gathering her roots into her second layer of leaves and grabbing the nearest item to wear, a lamp, she jumped from the high shelf, coming to a halt just off the ground. She hovered there for a second, looking back up at her shelf. It would be hard to return to her grounding pad later. Eh, didn't matter.

She floated at the door for several minutes before realizing it wasn't going to open. Darned place was a wreck. Kry had opened the door before, but Sol wasn't anywhere near strong enough to get the door open by herself. Or big enough. Using the debris as a bumpy ramp, she climbed onto what would be Kry's desk and knocked on the window in front of it. Perhaps she could at least get the janitors attention. She could use her perceived cuteness to charm him into letting her out, if he cared enough to try and keep her in the room in the first place. Otherwise they would just opent he door and she'd be on her way. Her eyes curved upwards, indicating her happiness with the plan.

Medical Bay, Deep Space Wintreath

K011 was elbow deep in the wiry guts of the main door's terminal when he heard tapping on the Plexiglas window to his left. Standing on the doctor's desk, was a plant creature wearing a lamp for a hat. K011 had never seen anything quite like it, whatever it was though it seemed sentient, and he could only guess it was trapped in the office. Regulating his breathing for a moment he removed his arms from inside the main door's terminal and headed over to the office door. The Doctor had pried it open earlier but the door had almost completely re-closed behind only held partially open by a knocked over IV stand. The clone pondered the situation for a moment. He had never seen this thing before, and the Doctor had not mentioned having any companions. To his knowledge the creature could either be some sort of companion to the Doctor he hadn't been told about, or it was a stowaway of some kind. If he had her comm-code he would have called the Doctor to confirm, but that was not the case. Figuring it was the better thing to do, K011 grabbed his tools and opened up the office door's terminal and set to trying to open it up, this was in even worse shape than the main door, and he discovered it was more than just negligence, some of the wires had outright been cut by what he assumed must have been the previous crew. It made things easier to fix at least. He grabbed some spare wire and reconnected the offending sections, and like magic the doors slid open. His facial muscles spread into a satisfied smile at the accomplishment but K011 was already thinking about the next objective, in a moment he was out of the terminal's guts and standing in front of the door blocking the plant creature's path.

"What and who are you?" he said in what was almost his usual monotone, but there was a sharp defensive edge to it.

Main Bridge, Deep Space Wintreath, Maigar System

LST: 1:01:00, 05/14/7051 Mayyoran Calendar


QWERTY scratched his head with the holographic hands, the flame disappearing, as the droid witnessed the the rather rude and sudden departure of Lieutenant Zerick. Then the Commander Saav spoke, relatively more politely yet definitely in a strained voice that lost its patience, declining any sort of deal until a later date. Oh, well. These mortals don't really know that QWERTY is not inclined to help all the time. He'd have to collect some more data on this Commander at a later date.

He dignified the Commander with a quick-paced response, "Oh, that's alright. We might, just might be able to arrange something later. After all, you really don't have anything to offer. Just know that I know lots of things." Tons of images suddenly flashed in a sort of picture montage through where his eye is. If anyone could recognise them in the brief milliseconds they showed, some pictures were of government and military secrets. "You see, I've been a resident of this station for quite a while now, more so than my other places of living! Let's just say the previous escorts I had through the vast expanse of space met an untimely demise by the previous nation owning this station, and that I snuck on board when they captured the dead ship I was on. I've been gathering their data for a while now until you Federation boys and girls showed up to save the day." QWERTY paused for a brief second, his holographic hands disappearing. "If you need any of that, see if you can find me! Not that you could. Also, you'd need something to offer on the poker table. Anyways, ta-ta! I don't really need to be guided out." Quickly, he repeated a lovely spiel he liked. "Remember, reality is an illusion and the Universe is a hologram!"

The droid blinked to where the vent was, and then immediately floated into the wall instead of the duct. This was accompanied by a loud "OOF!" QWERTY frowned before proceeding through the proper vent. Just before he vanished, he played a recording into the bridge speakers. His very own rendition of "We'll Meet Again." It was quite a good cover if one could get past by the tiny tinge of robotic voice that created a sort of depth effect.

Medical Bay, Deep Space Wintreath
Sol hopped down from the desk as the door slid open, on for her path to be blocked by the human. She frowned momentarily, debating whether or not she could fit under his legs. However, the gap seemed a bit small.

She tilted backwards to look at the whole human, one tendril having to hold her hat in place. She blinked at him, debating the best form of communication. The man was much more stoic than she had predicted. He seemed tense, which Sol couldn't understand. Why would someone be tense around something like her?

"What and who are you?" His voice was unlike the humans she had interacted with before. Then again, they had been dying or in extreme pain. He spoke in a monotone, something that Sol wasn't sure what meant and made it really hard for her to calculate her next move. It did not help that he seemed to expect a verbal reply, something she lacked. And no one studied her people's language. Or at least no one in the Wintrean space force or the Rayan system. It was easier to pretend they didn't talk.

So she did the only thing she could, taking a massive risk and hoping his mind could understand it. Most couldn't, and it was taxing on her people to try anyway. But she saw no other options. She reached she reached up, brushing his hand, and immediately felt as if she had been slapped. She reeled backwards several feet, curling her tendril towards her, the front of it now appearing burnt.

IM-Sol. I want to explore. Lemme out.. Though unspoken, the words echoed around in her head for a second before fading out. She looked at the human, relived when there was no obvious harm. Kry would have had her head. But wether the human had gotten the message, whether he had felt the same pain as others instead, whether he even cared was  still unclear. Sol hovered back up to the door, tucking her damaged tendril into her leaves to recover.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay

The moment the plant creature touched him, K011's mind was barraged by what he recognized as an attempt at psychic communication. Unlike training and directives given to him by Imperial psychers during his early days this creature was untrained and the words echoed in his head like a hand grenade going off. He collapsed to one knee but he fought through the static and understood the message.

Holding in the urge to vomit from the pressure K011 regained as much composure as he could and replied.

"How did you get on this station?" He wheezed and braced for the next psychic communication.

Medical Bay, Deep Space Wintreath
Sol was momentarily shocked that A) the human was still conscious and B) he seemed to have gotten the message, even if it appeared to take a toll on him. It was rare to find someone who could deal with the direct neural message system, which is why it was rarely used outside of emergencies.

Reaching out again, curiosity getting the better of her, though she probably could have gotten around the now kneeling human, she poured a bit more power into the message, hoping it didn't kill him for the sake of giving her more time to speak. He would have to hold on longer for a longer message. It took more control, more power, which Sol wasn't sure she had. Her injured tendril grabbed onto his hand, this time not letting go.

Kry took me here. I'm supposed to stay here, but I don't want to. You can withstand this method of communication. Can all humans do so?

Excitement tinged her words. Excitement of such a possibility, excitement of what lie beyond the door. But mostly excitement that her ward might be able to understand her. If she made it that far. The message didn't hurt so much this time, but that was likely the result of her many desensitized nerves from the first time around. Her head still spun with the echo, causing her to retreat under the desk, away from the light in the doorway.

Deep Space Wintreath, Medbay

As he had expected 'Sol' had replied to his questions. Once again it hurt like hell but he was ready for it this time and withstood the splitting headache. He was internally relieved that the creature was a companion of the Doctor, however it brought on a new dilemma the creative wanted to leave the medbay and made it expressly clear she didn't have permission. Regaining his strength he got up from his knees and stood over the plant creature.

"To answer your inquiry, I don't know if humans can understand you or not as I am not human. But I can tell you understanding of psychic communication is standard with all Bellarum combat clone templates. As for letting you out... I cannot allow you to leave the medbay if you do not have permission to do so... However if it is not harmful to you you may explore this space so long as you remain within my sight until the Doctor returns." A large part of K011 wanted to simply lock the creature up in the doctor's office where she would have the minimum chance to cause trouble but he remembered what Venora had told him about giving people some accomodations. This seemed like acceptable parameters for both parties.

Deep Space Wintreath, Room 44-232, occupant HKR-07

HKR-07

HKR's room was rather sparse. There was a workbench, a tool cabinet, a computer diagnostics and programming station and a staff. That was it. Usually HKR spent its time tinkering with things, running diagnostics and practicing with its staff. The front door opened and HKR stepped in. It immediately made a beeline for the diagnostics station, plugging in leads into various ports in its body and head. It initiated a full diagnostics scan, it wanted to know what was going on with it. The memories were coming faster then before and were getting to the point where it was distressing it. It had to figure out what the hell was going on. The scan would take hours, however. In the meantime it might as well look through what it had taken from Paeban Wlo.

The files were sadly disappointing. Wlo had nothing HKR did not already have, no new leads, no new information. The entire process was a waste of its time. HKR picked up a widget from its workbench and threw it across the room in anger. All that effort for nothing. Then HKR stopped and looked at the remains of the widget across the room. Did it just.....why? Why did it do that? It had felt....angry? What? HKR looked at its hands. It had felt angry. What was happening to it?