Speaking Out on Nate

Previously: Menagerie: Tally, Ho! and Menagerie: “The Great Escape”

To anyone that happened to be looking at that section of space where the Iron Hide II came out of the jump, the ship seemed to hop, and stutter into real space as opposed to the smooth glide that all of the vids showed ships making.  The hull was glowing red from the heat from the transfer from jump to real space.  The engines were cold.  A few moments of drifting away from transition point before the engines flared orange to life and the ship moved towards a distant speck.

The distant speck slowly turned into the recognizable shape of a ship.   The ship had a rounded nose that blended smoothly into the long body and engines at the rear.  The entire ship was white with no markings that could be picked out by sensors.  The bridge was dark, no weapons were visible and the engines were cold.  The ship had been sitting there for a while from all outward indications.

“Do they know we are here,” Tariq asked Moe?

“They know,” Liishi said quietly.

Tariq tossed her a glance before returning his gaze to Moe.

“She’s right, they know we are here,” Moe growled, “they have run several scans on us since we jumped.”

“What kind of ship is that,” Hobbs asked?

“I’ve never seen one like that,” Moe responded while looking closely at his scanner.

“Hail them,” Tariq ordered.

“No need,” Liishi spoke up, “they have already contacted me.”

Tariq, Moe and Hobbs all rounded on her.  Liishi held up a communicator with a single blinking light.

“That the signal to approach and dock,” she said meeting all of their gazes equally.

“Oh,” Tariq said sheepishly, “Hook us up Moe.”

“Right away.”

The Iron Hide II slowly approached the side of the white ship.  The closer they got the clearer the image became and the less information they had.  The ship was clear of anything that they could use as identification.  A few minutes later the Iron Hide II hull vibrated as a docking collar from the white ship made contact.

“Good to go,” Moe said.

Liishi headed down to the docking collar without a word.  W.B. joined her in the hallway.  Tariq and Hobbs followed, before they left the bridge Tariq said to Moe, “Keep her hot just in case we need to make a quick escape.”

Moe just stared at Tariq.