An Explosive Request

The trio emerged from the ambassadorial suite a short while later to find Meli and Trea’k sat with Yril’k, the three women quietly sipping drinks. “The automat’s primed for you, just hit the go button and you’ll get breakfast.” Meli said as soon as she saw them arrive. “Eat first, then we have a couple of matters we need to discuss. I’d like to get started on those talks as soon as possible, but there’s no point if you’re all still waking up.” Dustin thumbed the automat’s button while his fiancé was talking, picking up the tray it dispensed and turning to the table.

Setting down the packaged meals in front of the two other late risers, he sniffed at the hot mugs - mocha, coffee and Rye’s morning brew looking remarkably similar but tasting very different. While Emely had taken to drinking coffee quickly, the one occasion Dustin had sampled the Rabyth drink he’d immediately regretted it. While it was close to coffee in flavour, Rye’s morning cup was far more bitter than even dark espresso - not a good taste when you’d been expecting the chocolate tones of a mocha.

Sipping his drink and allowing the warm beverage to chase away the remains of sleep, Dustin popped the lid on the food container and dug into the combination of bacon and scrambled eggs. It wasn’t a great breakfast, scrambled egg not being something that stored particularly well - and so it was with the ongoing desire to find a proper cook for the crew turning around in his mind that Dustin finally set his fork down, checked the others had also finished and turned to his chief science officer.

“Alright Meli, we’re all up and done with food. Let’s get started with the topics of the day. You said there were a few things - what’s the agenda?” The Velca woman tapped her tablet a few times, and the table’s hologram projectors sprang into life. “Two topics require our attention currently. First, we have our ongoing mission.” The projector flickered, showing a model of a star system not too unlike Sol; the only reason Dustin was able to tell the difference was the lack of a moon on the third planet out from the sun. If it’d been Sol, that would be Earth - and Luna was a pretty noticeable orbital mass, given how large it was in comparison with it’s host planet.

Meli tapped the tablet again, and the view shifted to a spidery figure that made Rye hiss with concern. “The other matter is the ongoing enquiries I have been making into the identity of the saboteurs you and Rye encountered on that communications outpost.” The Rabyth sat forward at that point. “Are you saying you’ve found something? Dusty, you’re not reacting - did you know?” she said, her eyes narrowing. Dustin raised a hand soothingly. “Only since last night right before we crashed out. I took the decision to not discuss the matter when we were all barely awake.”

The bunny girl sighed and nodded. “Probs the right call Dusty, though you could at least have mentioned we’d be talking about it today.” Dustin raised an eyebrow. “Would you have been able to sleep if I had?” Rye grimaced but shook her head in reply, but before she could say any more Meli tapped the table, returning their focus onto her. “Regardless of how we’ve got to this discussion, I would like to move on with it please.” All eyes were on the Velca woman as she manipulated the hologram, splitting it into two and displaying smaller versions of both the alien and the star system. “Which shall we tackle first?”

After a brief discussion, the decision was taken to focus first on their next mission as that was the more immediate matter. Once they’d done that, there would be plenty of time to talk about what Sola and Meli had found and any potential implications. With the choice made, Meli returned the hologram to just showing the star system and began to talk through the situation. “We’re in transit towards this system currently; it’s not officially been named yet so just has a numeric designation. That doesn’t matter as much as the current state of the third planet. It’s in the early stages of colonization - around fifty thousand inhabitants - and all was going well until around a month ago when this…” and here she tapped her tablet, causing the hologram to zoom in on a blinking marker in the outer system “…was detected. It’s a rogue asteroid; originally it was thought it would pass through the system without issue but updated calculations indicate it’ll fall into the colony’s gravity well.”

The assembled crew winced at that. “Likely damage?” Rye asked, eying the asteroid suspiciously. “Based on current calculations? Anywhere from a three year winter through to the crust getting cracked and the planet going molten for a century or more.” Meli said, causing worried glances to be shared between the others. “So are we going to help with an evacuation or…?” Dustin asked, staring at the hologram. “Ideally, no. When they put the request out they were looking at evacuation in a year’s time - the rock’s pretty slow moving - or alternatively a warship or mining vessel’s help to disassemble the asteroid. As the target has low value minerals in it they haven’t had any luck getting mining ships interested, and the military are largely busy dealing with larger colony issues and pirate hunting so wouldn’t be available until it was too late, even with a year of lead time.”

Yril’k leaned forward at that, suddenly taking more of an interest in the briefing. “You intend for us to fill in for a warship’k then, science officer’k?” Meli nodded. “If this were a normal ambassadorial ship, we’d be able to help with the evacuation and not much more - but the humans have massively overcompensated when it comes to point defence and weaponry. Even if we ignore the spinal weapon, we should be more than capable of bombarding the asteroid into a cloud of small enough pieces that they will burn up on atmospheric entry.” Dustin nodded at that point. “We will be ignoring the spinal weapon. Meli - for future reference, anything like this you see potential in please discuss with me first before adding it to the list if it’s likely we’ll need the big gun. I’d rather not have to report back to EarthGov that I’ve fired the thing just because there was an annoying space rock in our way.”

Taking that under advisement, Meli answered a few more questions from the security officer before Yril’k sat back in her chair. “If I may, captain’k, I would like to take the lead on this one’k. It is a simple enough task’k to set up the firing solutions for our purposes’k.” Dustin gave the insect warrior a thumbs up before turning back to his fiancé. “Okay, so Yril’k’s going to handle the bulk of our next mission - let us know if you need help with anything from any of us please security officer. Now, if that’s our next stop taken care of - Meli, would you run through what Sola’s found out about our saboteur.”

The others straightened up at that point - while Trea’k and Yril’k hadn’t been around when Dustin and Rye had fought the strange alien, they’d seen the helmet camera footage and were well aware of the crew’s concerns. “As you are all aware” Meli began “Dustin and Rye came under attack from a multi-limbed entity that dissolved on **** - or at least, what we believe to be ****. This was accompanied by a significant weave-transit event, raising several concerns in my mind - but apparently none from the greater galactic council. Since that incident, I have been working with Sola’s databanks to try and identify a potential match for the species - to no avail. In exasperation, I turned from known living species to the historical record and found what we believe to be a match or close to one - an extinct, non-weave-capable species called the S’sh’el.”