[M] The Andromeda Federation (IC)

[Moonlit_Fae]

Ayo felt bad as she tried to understand this alien's strange language. She was about to give up until she pointed at the pouch on her belt. She quickly opened up the pouch and found the three vials. Ayo was unsure, but she had no choice but to trust this alien and what she needed to survive. "Ok Kzznikkt, if this is what you need I will help give it to you."

She only uncorked one and slowly let the liquid fall down the alien's mouth, hoping she would not aspirate upon the liquid. "Do you need more?", she asked holding the vials up waiting for confirmation. Meanwhile she talked back to Pedro. "Hey see if you can get that translator to work. Also we need to hurry, let's move Kzznikkt if we can."

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

It was an unsettling sight to see, the insectoid mouthparts clicking and rubbing as the golden liquid dripped between them, but to Kzznikkt, it was heavenly. A warmth spread throughout her body, dulling her pain as it sharpened her senses. Her eyes glazed over gold, and for a moment, her body froze. Then, like a machine springing to life, it relaxed. She released a shuddering breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding, then turned back to Ayo.

“This will be fine for now. I will need more later.” She reached up to grasp the bed frame with her two right arms, pulling herself to a standing position. It was shaky, but she was standing. She coughed, clutching her stomach. Her fingers came away covered in sticky green blood. A hole in her thorax from a slugthrower. She didn’t know they still made those, but whoever this ship had belonged to, they were a bit behind. A slug is still a slug though, as her wound would testify. Any other sapient might have died from this wound, but she was Tek-Haxxar! The greatest race in the universe! Her antennae twitched in excitement.

“If you... mend me, I’ll tell you everything,” She said in her broken attempt at their language.

[Azazeal849]

Pedro could only hang back, still wary as the wounded Tek struggled to force Trade words through its insectoid mouthparts. He tried to reconcile what he was seeing with what he had grown up with: the Tek whom older rim-worlders spoke of with a kind of guarded disgust, their expressions stiffening at the mere mention of the name. The Tek who played the villains in a steady stream of action flicks and holo games, and the occasional news article - the sinister, unpredictable enemy that prowled around the Federation’s borders like a wolf sniffing for weakness.

The Tek lying here amid the corpses of a dead ship. Even injured and alone, it exuded a kind of quiet threat. Pedro couldn’t take his eyes off its hands; the black nubs under each wrist that could lash out a footlong, venom-tipped barb at a moment’s notice. He imagined one of them stroking the back of his neck, tracing the path of the sweat that was beading there.

“Ayo…” he urged again. “Step back.”

The Tek coughed and let out a soft, chittering buzz. An icon began to blink at the corner of Pedro’s visor as his translator picked up something it recognised.

Do you have a translator? ticker-taped across the inside of his helmet, before blinking out.

Oh. Pedro thought sourly. Now you decide to work.

It was then that Captain Zya’s voice all but squealed at them over the radio.

“[AUTHOURATIVE/URGENT/ SIGNIFICANT STRESS] Gather your samples and any evidence of note, especially of Tek-Haxxar presence and return to the ship. This has escalated to a political incident beyond our jurisdiction and means. We move out as fast as possible to the closest Federation outpost and inform them of what we have found.”

“Got it.” Pedro agreed. “Tink? Wrap it up and meet us back at the airlock. We need to go.”

Ayo, kind-hearted to a fault, was still trying to help the wounded Tek, tipping a vial from its suit webbing between its clicking mandibles. The liquid was amber and viscous - food, medicine, combat stimms, Pedro had no idea.

“Do you need more?” Ayo asked, holding the other vials up and waiting for confirmation. Meanwhile she talked back to Pedro. “Hey see if you can get that translator to work. Also we need to hurry, let's move Kzznikkt if we can.”

Pedro bit the inside of his cheek and switched to speaking Zalmade, no doubt jumbling some of the tense-signifiers and glottal stops in his hurry.

“Ayo.” he croaked, “You heard the captain; this is above our pay-grade. Even if we could just fly off with a Tek-Haxxar, we don’t have another suit to get them across to the Falcor.”

“If you... mend me, I’ll tell you everything,” the Tek spoke up, in her broken attempt at their language.

Pedro fumbled with his wrist display, selecting the translator. Having just registered Tek, the alien language icon was already blinking at him at the top of the list.

“No.” he told the gut-shot alien as it clung to the table to stop itself drifting in the zero-G. The word left his projector mic as an angry buzz. “You’ll tell us everything now. What were you doing on this ship?”

[Enigma]

Sirc scowled as the Captain's alert broadcasted into sickbay as she made a small adjustment and studied the result.

Dracosian pride welled up in her - they never did like competition.

"Okay," she frowned. "It looks like we have a base reading and yes, it can survive in the shipboard environment. It just needs a standard multispecies vaccine plus a booster in one month's time."

She keyed in the instructions, pausing for a moment.

"If you can communicate with it, let it know it will feel a sting."

The injector came alive, pressing against its arm as it prepared to deliver the vaccine.

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

She was delighted to hear her own buzzing language, though not so much what was said.

“No. You’ll tell us everything now. What were you doing on this ship?” He snarled at her. She cocked her head at the small human, a bit over waist height. Her claws twitched to extend her stingers, driving them into his eyes and vulnerable veins, leaving him twitching and paralyzed... but no. She wouldn’t.

“I’ll tell you what happened, but you must take me off this wreck. The Ambrosia will help with the stress of vacuum, at least for a minute or two.” She cocked her head toward Ayo.

“We were a scouting team. Looking to step into this Federation’s weaker borders, take a system or two. Nothing big, yet. Orders came straight from the Queen, look but don’t touch. Until we came across this ship. It didn’t show up on any radar, no computer could sense it. We only saw it out the window. Some kind of cloaking device. The Commander thought it was a new Federation weapon. Undetectable, able to slip past our defenses and destroy us. He ordered a strike, to destroy this weapon before it could be used against us. We followed the order, capturing it in our tractor beam while the strike team boarded. We swept through the ship, looking for Federation members. We only found them.” She gestured to the freezing carcasses of the crew.

“It was too late to back out, and as the Commander put it, foolish to give up such easy prey. So we destroyed them, though they took their pound of flesh. I was going to lie here and die, until you folk appeared.”

[Moonlit_Fae]

As the Tek Haxxer rose Ayo was in awe. This alien sprang to life from the golden liquid. She was intrigued. She would surely have to run some tests on it! Her mind began to race wondering what this liquid might do for dying plants. She was so absorbed into her own thoughts she never picked up on the severity or danger of the situation. It wasn't until Pedro spoke to her in her own language did she realize what was going on. She was always slow on the pick up and just always wanted to help.

Ayo reacted with her legs, letting them kick her back easily and with distance between her and the Tek. She still had the two other vials and put them away in one of her pods dangling off her belt. She took this moment to hold onto her laser pistol again. Lifting it up and on guard, but not aiming it at the alien just yet

"We have saved your life and for that we ask to leave peacefully back to our ship. We cannot risk you getting orders from your Commander giving you orders to destroy our ship and our crew. I value life but I also need to protect the crew I am a part of ."

[Yggdrasil_Hugger]

She scoffed, which turned into a hacking cough. She shuddered, eyes momentarily going blind. Wiping her mouthparts on her arm, which left a green smear, she spoke again.

“Ha! My Commander is halfway across the galaxy by now, bringing news to The Queen. He could not command me if he wanted to.” Her head snapped to the pouch her Ambrosia was in.

“If you are going to leave me to die, at least give me back my Ambrosia. Let me drift off peacefully rather than feel the cold grip of vacuum again.”

[Highland Sniper]

"Hey... you, what is she- AH!" was what came to mind as she was injected with the serum.
"Let me out!" She thought despirately.

Her thigh stung with the injection, and it grew red. She had no idea what had just struck her, but she figured it was some sort of injection, or needle by the feel of it.
The system started to read a partial rejection as the life sensor continued to give a readout of fast moving antibodies already trying to repair the wound and fighting a fraction of the forign againts that this one figure of a whole different race had just recieved.
While some of the serum was alllowed to do it's work, the antibodies fought a small portion of it fiercly.
the injection point became a small rash, and it didn't help her hyperventilation.

"What did you just give me?" she asked as she pressed against the lid to try to open it, resisting the great urge to scratch at her new rash.

[Alura]

Tink extricated herself from her business at the urgent warning. She knew enough to move her feet when such commands were given, but was loath to think of a Federation outpost. Too many official eyes everywhere and none of them particularly ethical despite the implications that they ought to be. She pulled the last of her sample collection containers and it plinked off of her face shield as she reflexively tried to hold it in her mouth before remembering that that would be impossible inside the exosuit.

Muttering, she juggled the kit as she went along towards the breach through which they had entered, "Yeh, yeh, on it!"

After waiting impatiently for a few minutes and still not seeing either Ayo or Pedro appear, the mechanic frowned a little. "What's the hold up?" She whined across comms.

[Azazeal849]

"We're coming." Pedro's voice clicked back. "One more survivor to take back with us."

Half a minute later Tink's crewmates reappeared, with a third creature crawling slowly and painfully along the handholds behind them. It was brown and insectoid, with long chitin-sheathed limbs and reflective compound eyes. Stinger needles jutted from the wrists of its four arms. Tek Haxxar.

"The attackers left her behind." Pedro said, and pressed his lips together. "So we're taking her back."

He had the distinct look of someone who had been outvoted on the matter.

"Apparently she can survive in hard vacuum long enough to make the trip." the pilot went on as he braced himself against the wheel lock. "We're going to have to rig up some space in one of the cargo pods."