"Mission Prep"

[Guest Laarell]

Laarell ignored the numerous protests that rose up within her as she assembled the components of her EVA suit. She really hated the things. They were bulky, clasutrophobia-inducing, incapable of being flattering regardless of who was in them, and possibly the most uncomfortable items of "clothing", if they could be called that, that Laarell had every had the displeasure of being forced to wear. This trip just kept getting better and better.

 

She sealed shut the suit, huffing as the headpiece locked into pleace with a reassuring whoosh. At least the mission objective seemed to have gone from impossible to achieveable. It could have been her eternal, unbreakable, characteristic optimism, of course, but Laarell really didn't have that "oh hell we're all going to die in painful ways" feeling that she had originally expected from this little trip of theirs. Death was still a distinct possibility, of course -- even if she wasn't on a ship named Excalibur, it always was -- but the fact that they weren't reading lots of angry lifesigns was a plus.

 

A callous thought to have, Laarell realized. She should have been wishing for a living crew istead of being relieved to hear that there wasn't going to be a clicking committee on hand to tell her that she wasn't allowed to have a shiny new Scorpiad vessel to play with.

 

On the other hand, Laarell acknowledged, steeling herself for the possibility, they therefore stood the risk of beaming over into a fetid mess of gore -- it wasn't as if they knew what had happened to whomever was crewing the ship, and nor did they really know how long the ship had been there, adrift with a rotting crew in the vacuum. Laarell glanced down at the hated EV suit again, suddenly grateful for its self-contained ventilation system.

 

It was worth it, she supposed. After all, they would more than likely be going home with a new lot of goodies to investigate, assuming that Starfleet didn't whisk them away to some more "deserving" and better-equipped research facility. Laarell was fairly certain that she was speaking for her entire department when she considered how... enticing... this whole prospect was. After all, Scorpiad technology was as mysterious as it was fascinating; the idea of an organic vessel was one that certainly excited her, and she was rather looking forward to figuring out some of the complexities behind it.

 

Perhaps she was being a bit hasty in her "homefree" assessment of the retrieval operation, but she really couldn't help being a bit giddy over the whole thing. The possibilities of what they could learn from this ship were endless. Assuming that it didn't attempt to abscond with her Trill -- or her, for that matter, Laarell realized with a smirk that she might eventually be calling the Union's assignment a success after all.