Xyla eyes the slug as it approaches. "When they told me I would be getting a slug medic I almost didn't believe them." She looks the creature up and down. This wasn't the first time she had interacted with a Slug, but they are a rare sight within the federation. Hell, they were almost as rare to see as her own species is. "It's a shame that the high command is not often bothered with such humor. Welcome aboard at any rate, and good job being the first person to show up. Punctuality is key on a warship."
"A slug huh," she though to herself "As if our crew could get any more odd." She chuckled slightly to herself. At least she did until she saw the Crystal walk through the hangar doors. To say she was shocked would be an understatement. In all her years she had barely even heard of the Crystal, and even then it was just stories that the Rockmen liked to tell one another. She wasn't the only one who had noticed the rare creature either, engineers and workers who stood around the hangar all stopped what they were doing to gawk at the creature. "I spoke too soon." she mumbled to herself as the Crystal approached. "Has anybody ever told you how many credits you're worth in the slave trade?" she light heatedly told the Crystal "Eh, I'm kidding. Welcome aboard." She looked down at the PDA that was strapped to her foreleg. "Here they have you marked down as a Rockman. It seems that the folks down at Registration were just as surprised as I am."
Once she had finished gawking at the Crystal, she turned her attention to the Mantis who had just showed up. It seemed as if the Federation were intent on putting anybody they deemed to be untrustworthy on her ship, and she really couldn't blame them. Although, knowing that she wouldn't be alone surrounded by aliens did comfort her slightly. She spoke to him in their native tongue, which consisted mostly of clicks and snarls. "This one expresses gratitude that you are here, welcomes you aboard my ship. Grateful to not be only Mantis."
Finally the last member of her crew arrived, albeit a few minutes late. That was to be expected though, given the information on his file. Xyla knew that even though he was human Wilson Clay had a record that stretched back almost as far as her own. She watched in amusement as he ran into an engineer. "Welcome, you must be Wilson-" she started, but watched as he walked straight past her to go ogle at her ship. She clicked her lower mandibles, her species equivalent to a shrug.
She rose her voice to speak to the entire crew. "Great, now that you have all arrived, we can get started. As you may know I am Captain Xyla Zhafiik, and this here-" she tapped the side of the ship with her foreleg "Is the Thunderchild" She grinned "You won't find a better ship this side of the Galaxy." She turned to face the crew. "Now, because of the ship and her Captain's past, Federation HQ have put us up for a sort of 'espionage mission', if you will. Recently several large Federation owned mining depots have come under attack from pirate raiding parties. Now this normally wouldn't be of any large concern, except that the Pirates from all raids are flying a unique banner, a large flaming eagle. Normally, HQ would just send several heavily armed warships to hunt down the pirates and destroy them, but being as how the pirates from this particular faction seem to be well organized and heavily armed this isn't exactly an option"
She takes a breath. "Instead, they have decided that a smaller measure is needed. If someone were to destroy the leadership that had managed to bring all those pirates together, they would likely kill each other off in an attempt at power, or weaken themselves enough so that HQ can just wipe them out like all other pirates." She looks at the crew members to make sure they are following. "This is, of course, where we come in. Given my background and how odd our little rag tag group is here we should have no problems fitting in with a bunch of pirates. Once we've gained their trust we hunt for who or what is holding this makeshift alliance together and destroy it. Easy, right?"
After giving her speech, she presses a button on the outside of the ship which lowers an entrance ramp. "Welcome aboard, friends." she looks over at Jevi "Get things fired up and a FTL jump prepped. We are to jump out of here at 8:00 GST" she turns to address the rest of the crew. "HQ managed to set us up with a contact from within the pirates. We are to meet them at 10:00 GST under the cover of wanting to join up with them. Which means everybody needs to be out of their uniforms before we get there. The last thing we want is to get hailed with us sporting federation colors. I expect all of you have some sort of casual clothes." She looks down at the slug "Well, maybe not you..." She looks back up, "If you don't I took the liberty of putting some spares in your lockers."
With one final nod at the crew, she turns and walks aboard the ship.
Topic: FTL, the fall of the Federation (Read 6920 times)