YE/E02 - SS Lord Franklin

[GM-01]

The Away Team materialised within the Lord Franklin's Control Room, the largest space available that the transporters could lock on to. Tricorder readings would indicate that the air was breathable, but it was warm and stale, as if it hadn't been properly recycled in years. The occasional wheeze from the ventilation ducts indicated the reason; the life support system had never been intended to run for centuries, and was likely on its last legs.

Dim illumination was provided by a handful of still-functioning emergency lights, requiring those without decent night-vision to use flashlights to get a good look. The layout of the control room was indicative of her origins as a converted submarine; a helm station complete with control yoke and ancient dials indicating depth, heading, and speed; weapons and countermeasures stations that had been haphazardly repurposed as additional sensor readouts, and a sonar station that now seemed to function as the primary sensor station. All sensors except visual appeared to be offline. There was, perhaps surprisingly to 25th century sensibilities, no dedicated chair for the Captain. What there was, however, was a seemingly fully-functional periscope system, which if tested would display real-time readouts from the ship's visual sensors.

Access to the lower compartments was by a hatch at the back of the Control Room, which would prove surprisingly heavy given its relatively small size. The ladder descended through another compartment, past a hatch that had been left open, and ending two decks down. Students of history or engineering would remember that on most DY-series ships, the middle deck contained the Engine Room and docking and escape hatch; the lower deck contained crew berthing, cargo bay, and a maintenance tunnel to the reactor and engineering spaces.

Careful examination of the area around the hatch would reveal a brass placard had fallen from the bulkhead and was caught between it and the nearest bulkhead. The details were covered by dust, but brushing off the outer layer would reveal the following:

[HMCS Lord Franklin. Dreadnought-class SSBN. Launched 2040.]

The dates would put the Franklin's launch in the middle of Earth's Third World War, something that had not been mentioned in any of the history books. Knowledge of whether she had been converted and launched during hostilities or following them had been lost to history, unless the data still existed in the Franklin's primitive computer system.

[Jennifer Braggins]

When she materialised, Jenny was immediately aware of just how small and cramped the area they had materialised in was; if she'd chosen to take a larger team, or they'd chosen to wear EV suits, moving would be difficult at best. Even with just the four of them, it seemed like they were taking up the majority of the usable space in the room. Though her enhanced vision quickly adjusted to the dull red glow of the emergency lights, she activated her flashlight anyway and let its beam of harsh white light pan across the room.

We're spoiled in the 25th century. I've seen equipment lockers bigger than this!

Air, warm and stale, was slowly circulating around the room, accompanied by an asthmatic wheezing sound that indicated the Life Support system wasn't in the best of shape. If the ship was to be salvaged, that would need to be repaired. The respirator masks the Away Team wore would keep them supplied with "fresh" breathing air for a few hours, but any extended stay aboard the Lord Franklin would either require a larger supply of masks, or a working supply of air.

"Altairi, your first job is to try and get Life Support running properly. If memory serves it'll be on the lower deck. Sara, you'll assist him; we'll need air if we're going to work here. I also want both of you to report on the status of any cryo-pods you come across."

Moving around the Control Room, Jenny let her hand very gently brush against the ancient consoles. Analog displays, manual switches, it was unlike anything she'd seen outside of a museum, and even most museum pieces she'd seen still had digital systems. The old-style wheel and yoke at what she assumed was a pilot's station stirred something nostalgic as she remembered her own time as a "stick jockey", and she allowed herself a small smile behind her mask.

"Arwen, I want you to try and interface with the computers; anything you can tell us about where this ship was going, or how it got here, would be great."

It was the first time she'd called Qi by his given name since he'd reported aboard, and was a sign of her growing comfort with him. Department Heads had been something of an issue for Jenny, even going back so far as the Gettysburg, and Science Officers especially so. Qi was one of the most enthusiastic and competent scientists she had met, lacking the ego or lab-centric attitudes that so often plagued experts in that field, hopefully this one would stay.

Continuing to pan across the room, Jenny paused as she turned and faced the centre; hanging from the ceiling was a cylindrical construct encircled by a metal wheel. Reaching up, and having to stand on her tiptoes to do it, Jenny grasped and with some effort shifted the metal wheel to the left. There was a dull clunk, followed by a hiss of ancient pneumatics, and she barely concealed a squeal of delight as the Franklin's periscope descended into position. Pulling the handles on either side of the assembly down, Jenny leaned into the view piece and was immediately assailed with data. Superimposed over the starfield display provided by the visual sensors were telemetry links from the functional sensor systems; too many of them were indicated as being offline or displaying error messages, but she could gauge the ship's current velocity and rate of orbital decay based on what she was being shown.

With a mischievous smirk on her face, Jenny shuffled her feet and panned the periscope around. As she'd hoped, the sensors moved with the periscope, and she paused as she focused the visual sensors on the Yeager, hovering at a safe distance. With a soft sigh, Jenny took the moment to gaze upon her new command, as beautiful as she was ungainly; she'd never been able to see her following her completion, but she felt the same rush of exhilaration as she'd done the first time she'd seen the Artemis.

Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made, for somewhere deep in their oaken hearts the soul of a song is laid...

[Arwen Qi]

Qi watched as the captain swept the bridge with her flashlight. A delicate tension hung in the air, like static before lightning. The Franklin’s various stations and instruments cast strange long shadows. He thought back to a night in his misspent youth when he and Lumis had snuck into a science museum after dark. Under the harsh security lights, the familiar exhibits looked like they might wake up at any moment.

"Arwen, I want you to try and interface with the computers; anything you can tell us about where this ship was going, or how it got here, would be great." The captain said, examining a periscope that hung from the ceiling.

Qi nodded, stepping lightly. He was an intruder here, but he meant to harm. As he approached one of the consoles, a rectangular plaque clattered at his feet. He bent over to pick it up.

[HMCS Lord Franklin. Dreadnought-class SSBN. Launched 2040.]

Qi read the words aloud to the away team with wonder.

“Strange that this never came up in my research,” he added. “So it was presumably returned and converted for space travel some time between 2040 and its disappearance in 2155.”

Did this have anything to do with the ship’s disappearance? He didn’t see how. Not yet.

Qi wiped a layer of dust from one of the ship’s terminals. He liked the more tactile nature of older interfaces, though he’d never used one outside the holodeck. He hoped that that the ship’s computers had held up better than some of its other systems. Even if the terminals themselves didn’t work, he could download much of the data to his tricorder, provided it hadn’t degraded too badly.

== Tag Away Team
GM Input: what is Qi able to learn about the ship’s mission/most recent activity in the computers? ==

[GM-01]

The computer stirred slowly (by 25th century standards), its ancient technology struggling to function on reduced power. Though there seemed to be some damage and/or corruption to the older mission logs and sensor history, the most recent logs were intact, though text-only.

In the entries, the Lord Franklin's Captain, a Walter Lockley, described in full his theft of the Franklin from its drydock and a secret rendezvous with a group of isolationists whose cause he supported. Led by Sociologist and Political Scientist Liam Kiernan, they had adopted a mentality that Earth's continued mingling with alien species would invite war and devastation that would destroy the Earth, and wipe out Humanity. Lockley had agreed to give Kiernan use of his ship to escape the Sol system and found a hidden colony that would survive the oncoming apocalypse.

In his final entry, Lockley described the safe activation of the Lord Franklin's cryogenic system, and signed off with the hope that his next entry would be from orbit of their new home.

[Arwen Qi]

Qi shook his head in disgust as he read the logs. Walter Lockley and his crew had left their home and destroyed their own lives, all because they were blinded by fear. They were no better than Qi’s family on Trill. At least these humans wore their bigotry on their sleeve, rather than hiding it behind a facade of politeness.

“Human separatists after all,” Qi grumbled, disappointed. “I’m tempted to say that they bought the ticket, so they should take the ride. Fortunately for them, the galaxy has evolved beyond that kind of primitive vindictiveness. Now let’s get them out of here before the Cardassians blow us up for trespassing.”

Qi searched the ship’s systems for information on the cryogenic pods, drumming his fingers on the screen of the old console as the information slowly printed to the screen.

== Tag away team

GM Input: What is the status of the pods? Can the crew be safely transported to our own pods in the cargo bay once it’s set up? ==

[Altairi Hydish]

As a child, he'd toured the corridors of an ancient warship, a battlecruiser built at the height of Ktaris's period of pre-warp global warfare. He still had a vivid memory of the feeling that'd followed him across the upper deck, through the turret stations, and onto the bridge: a strange tug from each of the bulkheads, pulling him in all directions, all while a low drone lingered around his ears, threatening a headache as the guide led him deeper into the ship.

“Can you hear that?” He’d asked his father.

“Hear what?” Came the reply.

It was with his dive into the Omarion Nebula that Altairi finally understood what had been bothering him all those years ago. It’d been the same thing that was bothering him now.

As his hand brushed absentmindedly over the rim of an abandoned scanner station, he could sense the ghosts wandering the deck. They weren’t the ghosts of the dead– if there even were any aboard– but rather afterimages, fragments of memories that had survived centuries of neglect.

"Altairi, your first job is to try and get Life Support running properly. If memory serves it'll be on the lower deck. Sara, you'll assist him; we'll need air if we're going to work here. I also want both of you to report on the status of any cryo-pods you come across."

He turned to face Braggins, sweeping her flashlight across the cabin, a part of him thankful that she’d snapped him out of his trance.

“On it, ma’am.” He lifted his hand off the console and sent a quick nod Midshipman Kiernan’s way. “I guess you’re with me.”

The rear access hatch clattered to the floor. Altairi grimaced. He hadn’t expected it to be that heavy.

He took a moment to clip his kit to his belt, then another to peer down the ladder. Altairi bit his lip. He’d traveled down a far darker Jefferies Tube only hours earlier, but there was something uniquely spooky about the two-deck drop into a room presumably filled with ancient cryopods.

Ancient human cryopods. He brushed a hand nervously over the ridges on his forehead. They’d already caused him enough grief from the children on Ktaris…

Please don’t wake up.  Please don’t wake up.

His hand wrapped a little too tightly around the first rung, and only a little less around the second. He could hear the ghosts getting louder.

== Tag Kiernan. So sorry about the wait ==
== GM Input: What does the team find on the lower deck? ==

[Jennifer Braggins]

Jenny backed away from the periscope as she heard Arwen retrieving something from the floor and starting to speak. The name was that of the ship, so he'd obviously found her commissioning plaque, but the registry and launch date did not match Jenny's expectations. Moving over to where her Science Officer stood,, Jenny lightly relieved him of the metal plate and let her fingers run over the lettering.

“Strange that this never came up in my research. So it was presumably returned and converted for space travel some time between 2040 and its disappearance in 2155.”

It hadn't come up in Jenny's research either, but it made sense; most DY-series ships had been converted from submarines, mostly while still under construction but more than one had reputably been converted after decommissioning as warfighting vessels. Had the Franklin been one of those? Given her commissioning number, Jenny had to assume so.

"I can't say I'm surprised, we don't have a lot of reliable information about the time surrounding Earth's Third World War. Also look here, Dreadnought-class S-S-B-N; the Franklin was a Ballistic Missile Submarine, at some point she would have carried up to a dozen missiles, each with half a dozen or so nuclear warheads aboard."

Maybe she even fired some of the shots that almost ended mankind...

Standing silently with the commissioning plaque for a moment, Jenny was still aware of Hydish and Kiernan descending into the bowels of the ship and Qi interfacing with the computer. Judging by the tone of his voice, he wasn't particularly pleased by what he had discovered. It was odd, given that's what his theory had been, how many scientists in the universe disliked being proven right? Perhaps Qi was not your average scientist.

“Human separatists after all. I’m tempted to say that they bought the ticket, so they should take the ride. Fortunately for them, the galaxy has evolved beyond that kind of primitive vindictiveness. Now let’s get them out of here before the Cardassians blow us up for trespassing.”

Moving to stand beside him and look at the same records he was viewing, Jenny's eyes narrowed on names and tried to wrack her brain for whether or not she'd ever read about these people; her memory, while enhanced, was still a step short of eidetic (though it was near-enough), and names were a particular weakness. Frowning as she continued to read, Jenny couldn't help but feel like she agreed with Qi's initial assessment; these people had tried to leave the known galaxy behind, who was she to drag them back kicking and screaming? Then again, the ship had broadcast a distress call, which meant she was legally and morally obliged to do just that if the situation called for it.

"I wouldn't be so sure about the primitive vindictiveness; even in Starfleet, when you get that third solid pip, things start to get political and the hatchets start being hidden behind backs. Plus, to be fair to these people, the mid-2150s weren't the best time for Earth; Starfleet had only been exploring deep space for a year, and then the Xindi show up and all but destroyed Florida, promising to finish the job with a bigger weapon. Vulcan extremists blew up Earth's embassy on Vulcan. Then tensions with the Romulans start building. All of this less than a century after the end of the Third World War. If I was living on Earth during this time and wanted to assure the safety of my family, I'd probably consider hijacking a ship and running for the starts as well!"

[GM-01]

==Qi==

As far as Qi could determine, all of the pods were functioning within normal parameters. However, the computer did note that there had been interruptions to the power supply on several occasions, and that the entire cryogenic system was operating on minimal power.

Transporting the inhabitants out of the pods and into new pods was a very risky move. It would be far safer to transport the pods themselves and get them hooked up to the Yeager's power systems. Each pod should have its own emergency battery, which would allow such a transfer, but given the power interruptions recorded on the computer, that might not be possible in some cases.

==Hydish==

Hydish and Kiernan would have to walk past several dozen pods to get to the life support equipment at the bow of the ship, just behind the sensor dome. The cryo-room was chilly and a layer of mist clung to the deck. The pods themselves seemed to hum with life-sustaining energy, but the occupants inside were hidden by a century of ice crystals forming on the transparent parts of the tubes.

The life support system was, in short, a mess. It looked as though it had been hastily repaired at some point in the past, and that repair was failing. The system audibly wheezed as it circulated air around the ship, and several tears in the ductwork connected to the system suggested that a lot of the air wasn't being circulated at all.

Perhaps most worrying, were they not all wearing respirators, was the state of the filters; they were long-since clogged with a thick brown gunk, and the fact any air was being passed through it was nothing short of a miracle.

[Arwen Qi]

Qi studied the captain as the stasis pod information loaded to his console.

“You think so? I guess I can see the appeal. They must have felt pretty helpless to the whims of the galaxy’s governments. They were looking for something they could control. I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to find out that a crew of humans and aliens saved their asses, assuming that ends up being the case.”

He tied his hair back up into a loose ponytail, no longer self-conscious about the dark spots on either side of his face. Maybe he was too quick to judge humanity. Even now, they were risking galactic war just by crossing an imaginary line.

“We should be able to transfer the entire pod over to the Yeager, but we should check the emergency battery on each pod first. If some are depleted, then maybe Hydish and Kieran can find a way to temporarily share the power supply between two of them until we get them hooked up to our ship.”

== Tag Janny ==

[GM-01]

==Hydish and Kiernan==

Unknown to the two officers, while they inspected the Life Support system, one of the pods had opened behind them. The occupant, groggy from hibernation but alerted to the intruders by their voices, had quietly stumbled from their pod and was moving towards them.

From behind, still unseen and until-then, unheard, a gruff voice spoke out in an authoritarian, if tired, voice.

"Step away from the machinery and put your hands up."

If the two turned, they would find themselves facing a Human male in his early fifties, with salt-and-pepper hair, a graying beard, and a 22nd-century plasma pistol levelled at them, finger resting on, but not tightening around, the trigger.

"Who are you, and what are you doing aboard my ship?"

[Jennifer Braggins]

Jenny watched as Qi worked and then put his hair back into the ponytail he regularly wore; he was obviously less concerned now about his heritage than he had been when initially beaming aboard, and thankfully, none of the Franklin's crew were currently awake. She had to admit he had a point about how the occupants of the pods would react to being rescued by such a diverse crew, since they had been aiming to escape the influence of "alien" governments, but right now that was less of an immediate concern.

“We should be able to transfer the entire pod over to the Yeager, but we should check the emergency battery on each pod first. If some are depleted, then maybe Hydish and Kieran can find a way to temporarily share the power supply between two of them until we get them hooked up to our ship.”

Jenny nodded slowly; Qi's idea had merit and it would be the quickest and safest way of transferring the passengers and crew to the Yeager in case the Franklin could not be salvaged. Such a move came with its own complications, however, as if the batteries were too depleted to initiate the reanimation sequence they would need to be connected to the Yeager's own power supply, and the resulting power differential would likely fry the pod and its occupant rather spectacularly.

"We would have to get a power converter set up; this bucket isn't running on EPS, so if we just plug them into our own systems...let's just say cryo-pods don't react well to power surges."

Jenny was about to continue when she paused; a sound below them had attracted her attention, one that did not mesh with the normal noises the ship was making. She held up a finger and frowned in concentration as she listened, filtering out the hum of the operating computers and the wheeze of the ventilation system. There, a voice, not one of her crew. Though she couldn't quite make out what was being said, the words didn't sound friendly. Bringing her raised finger to her lips to indicate Qi should stay quiet, she reached for her sidearm with her other hand and carefully slipped it from her holster. Indicating that he should follow her, Jenny flicked off her flashlight before carefully and quietly descending the ladder to the cargo deck. 

Someone's awake down here, and I don't think they're pleased to see us.

Her enhanced vision could pick out the forms of Hydish and Kiernan, partly obscured by an older man in a jumpsuit wielding a handheld weapon of some form, pointing it directly at her officers. Backing against the bulkhead to prevent a narrower profile, she raised her own weapon at the older man's back.

"Easy now, we're here to help you. And I would really recommend putting that weapon down before it blows a hole in the hull and kills us all."

[Arwen Qi]

Qi held his breath as the captain held up a finger. He hadn’t heard anything, but he tended lose track of his surroundings when he was deep in thought. He followed her down the ladder toward the cargo area, straining to adjust to the darkness, guessing where the next rung would be. Braggins didn’t seem to have any trouble. Were her eyes more sensitive compared to most humans? Finally, he heard the captain’s boots connect with the floor or the deck below. Qi stuck close to her, tucking himself behind a bulkhead as she drew her weapon.

Qi could see a shape in the dim light, a sturdy-looking man standing between them and the other two members of their crew.

"Easy now, we're here to help you,” Braggins said. “And I would really recommend putting that weapon down before it blows a hole in the hull and kills us all.”

“Or we can wait for the orbit to deteriorate a bit more so that we can burn up in the atmosphere. I doubt that’s what you had in mind when you stole this ship, though.” Qi added.

== Tag all

GM Input: is there any way for Qi to show a diagram of the ship’s orbit to help verify his claim? ==

[GM-01]

==Qi==

Tricorders had the ability to project simple 3d holograms, and would be more than adequate to display the Franklin's decaying orbit.

==Everyone==

The man turned his head slightly, and frowned as he saw the diminutive woman, whose face was mostly hidden by a respirator, levelling a weapon at him. Aware he was outnumbered, he released his grip on the plasma pistol's handle and let it hang from his index finger by the trigger guard as he raised his hands and turned fully, frown deepening as Qi spoke.

"What do you mean 'burn up', and how do you know I stole the ship?"

His gaze turned accusingly back to Braggins.

"Who sent you? The owners? Starfleet Security? What gives you the right to board my ship? We're no longer citizens of United Earth. My loyalty is to my crew, and to the safety of my passengers."

He coughed loudly and placed his free hand on the bulkhead to steady himself. Struggling to catch his breath, he looked around at the dilapidated compartment and sniffed at the stale air.

"What did you do to my ship?"

[Peter Jensen]

Peter's voice sounded urgent:

[Jensen to away team. Captain, we're going to be getting unwanted company in 27 minutes. Allow me to strongly advise that you're back here with the colonists in 26? I'm hounding Cargo Bay to get ready for you]

[Altairi Hydish]

"Ugh."

He'd expected the life support system to be in poor shape, not to be outright disgusting.

Altairi's flashlight waved over the brown gunk clouding the filters: the final nail in a coffin littered with holes and collapsing in on itself. He took a step back, frowning as he examined torn air ducts and exposed panels that indicated hasty mid-mission repair work.
It wouldn’t be a difficult fix so much as it would be a tedious one. The filters would have to be flushed out and the ducts patched back together, but it wasn’t as if he’d be realigning junctions and trying to interface modern tech with the ancient systems. He made a mental note to start ordering replicated plating from Yeager.

Altairi drew his tricorder, brushing past the phaser on his belt. The device flipped open with a click, its display lit up in bright blue, and a voice called out from behind him.

"Step away from the machinery and put your hands up."

The tricorder clattered to the ground. Altairi’s hands shot up. He didn’t turn.

"Who are you, and what are you doing aboard my ship?"

Shoot. A pod must have opened. He hoped it would be the only one.

“Uh-” What could he say that wouldn’t put a smoking hole in his chest? “I’m-”

"Easy now, we're here to help you. And I would really recommend putting that weapon down before it blows a hole in the hull and kills us all."

Braggins. Phew. He took his senior officers’ arrival as an opportunity to turn around, albeit slowly, hands still stuck in the air. By then, the other man had turned away and released his grip on his weapon. Altairi took a careful step backward nonetheless.

Seconds later, the man was bracing himself against a bulkhead. Cryosleep hadn’t been kind to him– and neither had the Franklin’s failing life support system.

"What did you do to my ship?"

“We didn’t do anything to your ship.” Altairi finally decided to speak. He lowered his hands slowly, shaking. “We found her like this. It’s, uh, been a while since you folks launched.”

== Tags. Sorry about the delay. ==

[Jennifer Braggins]

Jenny lowered her Phaser, but did not holster it, when the bearded man let his pistol dangle from his finger; she cautiously moved in and relieved him off the weapon, stuffing it into her belt with her spare hand as she stepped back away from him, just in case he still proved hostile. As it turned out, the man seemed almost exhausted, probably as a result of just waking up from hibernation; he was much less of a danger now he was disarmed.

Jenny smiled behind her mask at Hydish’s retort to the man’s words about his ship; this was now twice he’d been told the ship was in a death dive, though this was the first time anyone had mentioned that the man had been asleep longer than he thought.

“It’s a long story, but we’re not Starfleet Security and we’re not here to arrest you. The ship is in a decaying orbit as my Science Officer said,” Jenny indicated Qi with a nod of the head, “and we need to get you and your passengers off in case we can’t save the ship.”

Jenny paused for a moment as Jensen’s voice filled the room; the Os’rusa was on its way, travelling faster than they had expected. Though Jenny had known they wouldn’t stay hidden for long, this was a problem, and the curse she uttered in Nausicaan would have curled even the most vicious pirate’s toes.

“Okay, new plan. We don’t have time to do this delicately, so we’re going to have to brute force the relocation. Is there anyone on your crew we can wake up to assist us transporting the pods to my ship? Failing that, is there an emergency stop to the pods so we can get everyone out and to safety quickly?”

Without waiting for a reply, Jenny tapped her commbadge.

“Braggins to Yeager; I want the Slipstream Drive fired up ASAP. I know we haven’t let it cool down and recalibrated it, but we’re going to be neck deep in Cardassians soon and I’d rather not get our ship shot up on her maiden voyage.”

Jenny paused, then continued.

“Better go to Red Alert and arm the weapons, anyway…”

[Peter Jensen]

Peter's response came in loudly and clearly:

[Acknowledged. Red Alert. Weapons at the ready. What's the status on the pods?]

[GM-01]

The bearded man's expression had softened as Braggins calmly explained the situation to him, his expression turning to one of worry when she mentioned the decaying orbit and then the presence of approaching aliens and the need to arm her ship's weapons. The expression turned to near-panic when Braggins mentioned the need to transport the Cryo-Pods or awaken the occupants.

"We..uh...we will need to awaken my Engineer. She's the one who programmed the pods."

The bearded man, now identified as Captain Lockley by the name on his jumpsuit, led the team towards the bow of the ship, and his hands flew to his face in a mixture of shock and sadness as he stopped in front of a pod, not illuminated like the others. The door did not resist his hands as he pried it open, and he retched as he saw what was inside; the body of the ship's engineer had been preserved by the pod even after its failure, but exposure to the atmosphere now caused it to flake away to nothingness leaving nothing but a jumpsuit-clad skeleton within.

Lockley composed himself, grief still evident on his face.

"We...we should check Doctor Kiernan's pod. He's the one who chartered us. He needs to be consulted in whatever you plan to do."

[Arwen Qi]

Qi’s heart sank as Lockley opened the engineer’s pod. Lockley surely knew the risks of space travel, but that didn’t make it any easier to face the reality of losing crewmates and friends. That was one thing that hadn’t changed since the Lord Franklin's time.

"We...we should check Doctor Kiernan's pod. He's the one who chartered us. He needs to be consulted in whatever you plan to do.” Lockley said.

Qi grimaced. Lockley himself seemed like a practical enough man, but some of the verbiage in his logs was disturbing. Was Doctor Kiernan the one that characterized aliens as the destruction of humanity? And, if so, how would he react to the crew of the Yeager?

“If he’s stable, I’m not sure it’s the best idea to wake him up,” Qi suggested, gently. “Our doctors will be able to ease the crew out of stasis on our ship.”

Qi shot a glance at Braggins and Hydish in the low light, hoping that they would back him up.

== Tags ==

[Jennifer Braggins]

The rapidly-disintegrating remains inside the engineer's pod served to remind Jenny of the comparatively primitive nature of the equipment (and to a lesser extend, people) they were dealing with; the pod must have failed decades ago for decomposition to have been so complete, and Jenny now wondered how many of the other pods were in a similar state. While Lockley composed himself, Jenny silently motioned for Hydish and Kiernan to check the other pods to make sure there were no other surprises.

"We...we should check Doctor Kiernan's pod. He's the one who chartered us. He needs to be consulted in whatever you plan to do.”

Jenny's eyebrow rose as Qi interjected himself with what was, under normal circumstances, a fairly reasonable response. Unfortunately these were not the most reasonable of circumstances; though they had been summoned by an automated distress beacon and thus had initially acted in the best interests of the crew as determined by the situation, the moment any of the crew or passengers had woken up, their desires and rights had to be considered. That meant that under all legal interpretations, Kiernan would need to be awakened and consulted on any course of action; removing any of the crew or passengers against their will was a violation of their rights under the charters of both the United Earth and the United Federation of Planets.

We stick around and get caught by the Cardassians while we argue legality, or we take these people and the Civil Rights lawyers have a field day. I think I know which one I prefer.

"If we had the time, I would agree that Doctor Kiernan needs to be consulted. As it stands, however, the ship is in a rapidly-decaying orbit and there is a ship en-route crewed by people who aren't friendly to people encroaching on their territory. This is your ship and these are your passengers, as Captain it's your duty to keep them safe; we are offering you a chance at safety, but I will not risk my own crew waiting for it to be debated in a committee."

Jenny glanced up and down the rows of cryo-pods, hoping against hope that Lockley made the right choice. If she was going to be grilled by Headquarters, again, she'd rather be grilled for violating the rights of a hundred or so secessionists than for being forced to abandon them to the tender mercies of the Cardassian Union. Though she did not openly rest her hand on the grip of her Phaser, she placed her hands on her hips while she waited, ready to draw if Lockley became difficult and force become required to resolve the situation without further loss.

"We can have you and your people aboard my ship within five minutes, then it's a quick hop across the border back into friendly space. Once we're safe we'll get your people settled somewhere where you'll be left alone, but if we stick around too much longer, we'll all be settling at a labour camp."

[GM-01]

For a moment, Lockley looked torn between his duty as Captain and his duty to his employer. The conflict on his face was easy to read and his eyes darted between Braggins, Qi, and a nearby cryopod. His eyes hardened and his fists clenched as he made his decision.

"Doctor Kiernan needs to be told before a decision is made. This is his expedition, the choice is his."

He began to reach for the deactivation switch on the cryopod he had been looking at, a push of which would trigger the revivification process, and prevent beam-out until it was complete.