Optoblia meets Kawuia and Lioe, both seem to her like they are built well enough for the job. She hasn’t had to focus on miprite anatomy in a few cycles, but she’d have time to check on some information before they got around to their first pod or ship hunt. She is excited and nervous at the same time, the team seems well organized, and the place was pretty well maintained, which says a lot about the crew. If they have a messy ship, they might not take care of themselves either.

There are some extra coagulant pastes and she gets a few more canisters ready for the hunts, the trips inside pods or stations. They can be dangerous, defending her teams against the things going on. It is part of the training to have a smooth hand and watch your team’s back. Medics most often get a flat fee while the rest of the team splits the finds.

The bay has a computer to look things up on the galactic net, it would be impossible to know most if not all species through this galaxy alone, let alone all of them, so she is getting familiar with their data.

There are records of each crew member as well, each of them, other than Klua, the Limpfod who rarely goes off ship, has been shot or stabbed, and there has been a few history records including drug tests on record and wounds and clotting issues with members of the crew. There are some records on the different species that she also familiarizes herself with for the hunts.

The pilot makes an announcement over the intercom through the ship. She can hear it in the med bay, “Crew, we have ourselves a hunt after this long three day wait, let’s please the masses.”

Optoblia grabs her blaster and gear, leaves the med bay and goes to the cockpit. She makes it there so quickly that no one other than the pilot is there so far. “Please the masses, what do you mean, do you have a following?”

Proablew answers, “Nah, it is just something I say. We’ll get there eventually if you stick with us, the galaxy only watches famous crews, and we are far from it, but we have our respective families watching. We also need to get the attention of a faction, and none of them care if you don’t have a full crew who have done a few impressive hunts. Have you not sent message to your family to see if they’ll watch?”

Opt answers, “Nah, my family is full of medics and they are too busy, some even on their own hunts, to watch. This isn’t exactly exciting for them.”

The pilot’s smile is infectious with her, “Well, we’ll have to make them give a crap won’t we? This crew will treat you right. Stay back until we make you enough, unless we can get you some energetic shielding on one of our hunts. We can't afford tech that is so helpful yet, but like I said, we’ll get there.”

Shortly after that, Klua enters the cockpit. In the computerized voice, he asks, “We have a pod to check? Are we close? Are there any issues with the claim?”

“Not yet, my old friend. We are on this one, and it is away from civilization. Ours for the taking.”

On the view port on the front of the ship and cockpit, a ship pod comes into view. It isn’t very big, but it is no small pod either. Some beeps come from something the pilot is messing with. “Scan shows that it has two cycles of org material. I’ve seen smaller pods, so this one must have survived a bit. It hasn’t shot at us yet, so it isn’t too full of the important stuff. What do you say doc?”

A bright smile is behind her answer, “What else are we out here for?”

The Grech, Mal and Mel walk up from behind. Mal calls from behind them, “That’s the spirit sister. We doing this?”

The pilot calls, “Yup, everyone gear up and meet at the dock, we have a hunt!”

The rest of the crew darts off to their cabins and Opt is all loaded already, so she walks calmly to the dock door. Mal beats her to the air sealed door and they wait for the rest of them. Everyone else shortly makes it to the door and they all wait for their que.

Another announcement, “Hey, it is just about time all, just a few more seconds, the pod isn’t stopping us and you’ll hear the clamps in 3, 2…” kathunk. The ship shifts under the team’s feet and everyone readies their gear.

Kawuia, the miprite striker is up front ready to prepare the door to unseal and get moving, he has a low ranked energy shield to protect him. Mal is up front right behind him, he uses a light geared blaster shield, still weak against most weaponry, but the team doesn’t have the funding expensive gear.

Lioe is the human engineer, he has an energy shield and blaster as well. He says, “Oh, sorry don’t remember your name medic, do you have any energy shielding?” She shook her head no. He continues, “Give me a sec everyone, I can get her an old one.” It doesn’t do anyone much good if the medic doesn’t have at least a small protective shield. He goes back to his station on the ship and comes back within thirty seconds with an arm brace. He hands it off to her without a care, this sort of tech would be worth many hundreds of credits.

Opt asks, “Really? I can have this thing?”

The tech answers, “Sure, till you get a stronger one, it can’t take a bunch of rounds or hits. We can’t have you hurt, you protect yourself more, ok? The rest of them can shoot and hurt things, you be careful, and only take careful shots.” She nods as her ears flop over her shoulders and get in the way. She turns it on and sees the range of the shield, it is a wide oval. Pushing a button, it rotates to be more horizontal, presses it again and it is more vertical.

Mel is set to take the back area with Optoblia and Lioe. The team checks all of their gear one last time and Kawuia twists open the door wheel to allow them all access. The large door opens to another sealed door in front of them. There is a number pad lock on the outside of this pod, and Lioe steps up. A few screws loose and he finds a slot for his gear to plug into an open slot to manipulate the lock.

A few seconds of pushing commands and a few numbers show on his equipment display, he pushes an expected code. An affirmative noise in the lock has him pull his gear back and slide it into his chest pouch. The display on the screen also shows a small batch of credits from the hack, bringing a small smile to his face as the door hisses open.

The pod opens to sterile air and darkness. There is a setup for lamps to curve down from the group’s entrance to push in some light for them to start. This sort of portal happens often with low tech pods, most hunters don’t know why. Optoblia’s hands shake in anticipation of the first hunt with this team.

Feet in front of the doorway there is a wall from side to side, with a doorway at the center, seeming fairly uniform. On the floor, right and left, there are metal plates that look out of place. With the experience of the team, they see the suspicion and have Lioe check for somewhere to see if there is a way to disconnect the traps. On the left and right walls, there are tech consoles that are used to collect credits when done correctly. One of them wasn’t active though, one has its display on and blinking, the other is off.

The metal plates on the floor near the consoles seem like obvious traps, the engineer scans for handling issues. Info from the scan shows that the trap close by is linked to another console that he can go to in order to directly disable it. The engineer runs a scan nearby and finds a link with the active console that he notes passes behind the wall the flooring and is connected to another area.

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They pass through the first door that is seen and see a guard bot with an electric shock rod on tank wheels which activates when they pass through the portal. A turret gun slips out from the side of a wall as well, and the fight is on. The strikers get up front blocking the bullets from the gun, which are made of a lesser material, and the guard bot rolls towards them in its duty to protect the pod’s treasure.

For the most part, the team is in control, but when one of the specialists walk backwards in the hallway after being pushed back a few steps when the strikers are being pushed by the turret, they step on a platform on the ground. The trap releases a thick gas that is a bit hard to breathe, but obscures everyone’s vision in the pod that needs to see. The strikers call out that it is a mist to block seeing, not a poison.

The guard bot strikes are easy to predict since it gets close, but the turret is harder to guess. It gets a few good shots at unguarded legs from strikers and the specialists get a few plastic bullet punctures as well, but the strikers control the guard bot easily until the mist flows further into the pod and dissipates the area. Striker slams and specialist shots take out the bot and the turret eventually takes too much damage and breaks apart in the wall.

The crew walks back into the main entrance of the pod and Optoblia checks the severities, one striker needs a paste shot due to a slight wound, but otherwise the little damage isn’t worth wasting the healing goo.

When the gas dissipates enough, behind the guard bot is a terminal, and the tech plugs in. He is able to pull some credits for the team, and disable the trap from earlier in the pod. They return to that part of the pod and retrieve the credits from that pod as well, a couple hundred credits to split now, a small haul. The guard bot’s electric rod is taken as well, a few credits or a usable short range hitter just in case.

Optoblia asks them to wait a minute and runs back onto the ship. She picks up a couple more med packs that include poison blockers and rebreathers. Rushing back, she explains why she ran off for a short time, and the rest were fine with her prep. The gas hasn’t fully dissipated yet, but it clings to the ground metal like a crawling horror on its own.

Next doorway leads to another short hall, getting shorter till it gets to the larger compartment of the pod. The engineer has just recently used his scanner to clear the earlier traps and it is charging. Even with a sharp eye watching for anything, Mal steps on a trap that is even with the floor and stepping on a pressure plate opens a small slot in the wall. Hearing something strange he dives forward since most are behind him, and Kawuia gets shot with a metal rod, fired out of the wall aimed at his thigh. It was a quick shot without a gun, just out of the wall, and no one was prepared, and the small hole is covered again seamlessly by the wall.

Kawuia shouts and hits the ground with the metal rod punched through his leg. The active energy shield wasn’t protecting him enough for it. Opt rushes up and tells him to calm as much as he can, they pull him back to get him into a cleared hall so that she can work on him and they can continue. Lioe did another scan and finds that the trap needs to be directly cleared, no console on this one, and it was an easy disable for him through the equipment.

The tech scan also picks up another trap further in, beyond a couple of compartments. Opt uses some coagulant paste which closes the wound and helps with the pain. The rod sticks out through his leg, but he couldn’t feel the pain anymore, and pulling it could cause him to lose a lot of blood. She can work on it more after the hunt, but for now it would allow him to stand but she tells him to take it easy.

Through the door, there is a small wall on the left side that opens to a small compartment with hard plastic box containers which will be moved after the place is cleared. The tech scan only shows a trap further into the pod, so there are no current traps to disable. To the right is another compartment with a different wall, blocked by more hard plastic. With all of their eyes open, the strikers walk to the compartment and see a small compartment of organic material behind a protected cage.

A real treasure for the group, it doesn’t look full, barely has a few particles in it actually, but it is available to collect, once they can have it released. There are a few buttons around the cage, and with everyone watching, the tech slowly walks up to it. In the cool and stale air, the tech’s hand shakes as he uses the device to check on the treasure in front of him.

He isn’t able to find any power to the buttons or cage, it is powered off for some reason, but there is a power source that isn’t active. Walking closer to the case to investigate further, a turret silently drops down from the ceiling close by, along with another on the other side, above the crates. Mal blocks and starts shooting at the turret above the engineer and Mel and Kawuia block other shots from the turret that is able to shoot at the rest of the group.

Since the group has enough members, they can protect the engineer and medic with their gear. The concentration of two on one turret, and then they all work on the last, the two turrets break apart and don’t have time to pull back into the wall. Checking the panel again, the power still hasn’t come back to the organic material, destroying the turrets in this case sometimes triggers a success and reward, not in this case.

Continuing on, around the nearest corner there is a guard bot on treads, its eyes are gleaming red, with a laser rifle pointing at the corner where the first striker looks around and sees its barrel close by. Up goes the energy shield from the striker, and the rifle blasts away. Sparks fly from the energy shield from being so close to the weapon, but the shield holds as Mal braces his shield against the blow.

Without moving too much which can trigger more traps or reactions, the rest of the crew blasts the bot, putting dents in its body and derailing the treads. It hasn’t moved since the attack, but it was a place to strike. The bot attempts to aim the rifle to another target close by, but Mal is quick to take the shot again against the shield, its power continuing to drain.

Even the medic gets a shot off to the bot staying against the wall, its square head dented heavily from a few other shots from the crew members. A long beam shot comes from the bot’s rifle, drawing the need for Mal’s shield, and its other arm not holding the rifle transforms into a mini-chainsaw, whirling to life. Mal’s eyes are closed against the sparks, and can barely hear from the loud screeching from the attack, but with Lioe watching, he pulls back on Mal’s shoulder heavily, getting his body out of the way from a strike that would have taken his arm at the elbow.

Since Mal’s body jerked out of the way, instead of steadily taking the continual blast from the rifle, the angle is off and Lioe takes a graze of the weapon across his body, but it is superficial compared to most of the other strikes. The continual blast seems to be an attempted finale strike from the bot, as its metallic body breaks apart from the many dents and cracks.

Lioe’s mesh lined jacket is scorched, and his shoulder is bruised, but otherwise that strike against him is not close to life threatening. With no more bots, and from what they can tell just a single trap left, they are about to finish this pod. One more technical scan, and the last trap is found near the other corner, another cage with organic material, the trap protecting it.

The tech scan finds and disables the trap, which activates the power of the other organic material cage, but the material right in front of the group is still powered off. The others take a few steps over to get the prize, but see the lit up buttons next to it, and make way for the tech, who breaks away a metal panel next to the buttons to plug in while it has power. There is an elaborate set of buttons that needs to be pressed on this protection of the organic material, unless you can change the unlock code, and make it a single button, looking like an open version of the cage.

With that pressed, the side organic material is available, and after it is claimed, the power for the other material puzzle goes on, and all of the buttons light up. Without a panel to pry open, the tech looks around at the options. Looking back at the other material, there is no answer to the puzzle. He tells everyone to stand back, and pressed one button, there is no tone, or reaction.

He pressed another button, still no reaction. He pushed two at once, no other reaction.

As the rest of the crew looks around, they claim the rifle from the bot, but can’t pry the mini chainsaw loose from its arm. Moving the plastic crates from under the turret, they find another port to plug into, which draws the tech’s attention. Plugging in, the equipment itself is able to claim more credits to split, but there is also a trigger in it to do something else. Once hit, one of the buttons turns off at the panel, and another tone is heard in another previous area.

Going back to that area, one of the other technical ports is online, and the tech grabs the credits from that, and triggers something else. Another light tone is heard near the other side of the pod, a faint whisper in the quiet. Going back to the other side, there are not only two buttons that are lit up.

The tech is confident that the traps have been disabled, so he presses one, and they all hear a quiet tone, then presses the other, and the cage to the organic material releases. When they claim the material, a small light fades out that was highlighting the tiny compartment.

The treasure in the tech’s hand has the crew whoop with joy, Kawuia even jumps up and down on his punctured leg, barely feeling the pain.