Unity Station

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Just outside of Imperium space, a small but well equiped research station.

Unity is a joint venture between multiple worlds, hence the name. Xenobiology, anthropology and astronomy are some of the things researched here.
There's a small school, a few shops, one or two tiny restaurants and a coffee shop but generally speaking, the majority of the inhabitants are either researchers or family of researchers.

The chief of medicine is an insectoid woman named Yessalia.
Chief of security is a man named Tias.

Mourn tilted his head, hopping from foot to foot impatiently. "yes yes, fix drone."

The woman handed the drone over to the older guy, who looked it over thoughtfully. "I can cut replacement lenses for these, I think. Have you taken measurements of the lenses already? If you haven't, I'll need to take them out to digitally scan them," he asked Mourn.

Mourn nodded. "yes yes, do what need to do." He kept close, watching the guy curiously.

"Come on," the guy said, "We'll go to my office for this." He waved for them to follow, and headed off, holding the drone.

Zara followed along, while the woman who worked here headed off.

Mourn bounded off after the guy without so much as a thank you to the woman who'd helped them.

Zara paused to thank the woman, then followed. She figured it was good to be polite.

The older guy led them to a small, immaculately clean laboratory equipped with various pieces of technology for working with glass. There were also lots of glass things already on the shelves, maybe waiting to be cut to shape, or ready to be sent to the people who had requested them.

he set the drone down, then got out a fairly normal looking toolkit and set it on a counter next to it. "Okay, want to get out those lenses so I can measure them?" he asked.

Mourn grinned and got to work, removing the lenses as carefully as he could. It wasn't that easy for him though as his non dominant hand was robotic and had no sensation in it, it made it very difficult to do anything that required fine precision or a gentle touch.

He managed it mostly one handed. He did most things predominantly one handed.

Zara wondered if maybe she should have offered to help, oops. She wasn't quite good at remembering Mourn's limited cybernetic hand motion yet. Instead she watched the lens guy carefully, in case he did anything suspicious while Mourn was busy.

Once Mourn had the lenses out, the older guy would take them to some sort of scanner to measure them. He looked a little he didn't know what to make of all the staring though.

Mourn watched too, tilting his head curiously. "You can make yes? Fix drone?"

The guy looked up from the readout, to Mourn. "Yes, I'll be able to copy these lenses. It shouldn't take too long. Do you have the money for it?" He told Mourn the price per lens.

Zara's eyes widened. The price was probably pretty reasonable for custom glasswork, but to her it sounded pretty pricey. Eep.

Mourn just smiled. He had no problem spending Vestia's money and it didn't even occur to him she might say no. So he nodded and gave the account to be invoiced.

The guy smiled at Mourn, happy to be paid. "All right. I'll get to work on these," he said. "Did you want any spares as well?"

Mourn grinned, clapping his hands together. "yes! good idea! we have spares, lots of spares. Drone always getting into trouble." He nodded sagely.

"it's a good idea to stock up if your drone needs repairs often," the glass cutter guy agreed. He double-checked the computer's settings, and set it to work cutting the first lens. "We'll start with one so you can test it," he said, turning to look at Mourn and Zara again, "Once you know you're happy with it, we'll cut as many as you want."

Mourn watched the guy carefully, half to figure out what he was saying when he wasn't looking directly at them and half because he was genuinely curious about the glass cutting machine.
He nodded. "good."

The machine started grinding, slicing, and polishing the piece of glass to shape with a calculated precision no human could hope to match. It was fairly quick, but even so, it took many long minutes of of work and pauses to double check measurements before the first camera lens was ready.

Finally the machine blinked a blue light, signalling that it was finished. The glass guy took out the lens and handed it to Mourn. "Test this one out, I'll start working on the other size lens you need next, so you'll be able to test that too in a bit," he said.

"Want me to install it?" Zara asked Mourn, remembering how Mourn's cybernetic arm had made removing the lenses difficult for him earlier.

Mourn examined the lens carefully, holding it up to his cyber eye critially, turning it over a few times. Satisfied, he glanced at Zara who seemed to be trying to tell him something. He tilted his head. "You know how do?" He asked, gesturing at the drone and digging his smallest tools from the pocket of his coveralls.

Zara nodded. "I should be able to do it, yeah." She'd fixed small electronics before, so she had a general idea how camera lenses fit into place. So hopefully that would be useful knowledge here.
She'd take whatever tools Mourn handed her, before heading over to the drone.

Meanwhile the glass guy started the computer cutting a projector lens.

Mourn went with Zara to supervise, or rather, to boss her around.

Meanwhile, in a quiet corner of the station the air shimmered and a familiar dark coated figure stepped out of nothingness, brushed his greying hair from his eyes and tried to get his bearings.

---

Elsewhere a small transport ship bearing Imperium markings headed for Unity station at speed.

Zara got to work installing the camera, pausing whenever Mourn got her attention to see what he was telling her. She was accustomed to working with bossy people, so it didn't bother her especially. If any of Mourn's advice seemed clearly unnecessary, she just went ahead and ignored it, but otherwise she was fine with following his instructions.
Before too long, the camera lens would be installed. Hopefully successfully.

~~
If the ship was uncloaked and in sensor range, Vestia might notice it. She'd keep her scanners on it, curious about its speedy approach.

~~
Asher and Starr might be leaving the hospital now, maybe heading back toward Vestia. (Should they have found anyone who knows about Aketi biology while they were there?)

(Oo yeah why not? Aketi expert somewhere lol!)

The ship was definitely making a bee-line for the station.

---

Mourn examined the work and booted up Amity to check it was working.

The little drone's fan whirred to life and it hovered only a few inches above the table, wobbling a little uncertainly at such a low height.

"Can see now?" Mourn demanded.

The drone hesitated, then a pleasant voice replied "Ahh that's better, thank you." The voice crackled somewhat, the speaker was working but the little drone had taken quite a beating. Mourn had fixed what he could to the best of his ability but it wasn't perfect.

Mourn nodded. "good. We get other lens, fix projector. Go back sleep."

The drone obediently lowered to the desk and cut the fans, falling silent.

Starr was glad they had found someone with as much expertise as a non Ateki could get. Hopefully he could help them.
(Whoo, healing the tree people...one way or another.)

Vestia supposed that if this ship was bad news, someone would be sounding an alarm by now.
Unity was near Imperium space, so they must have more experience with Imperium craft than she did. Since no alarms were sounding, she stuck with watching for now, and maybe tuned into flight control's radio frequency if she could.

~~
Asher was glad they'd found someone who knew about Aketi, that seemed to be incredibly rare outside the species' own territory. Hopefully they'd been able to schedule an appointment for Hewitt, since that would be the best way to learn more.

~~
Zara waved to Amity and gave him a smile. She figured it was only polite since this was the first time he could see her. The crackling speakers made it hard for her to tell what he was saying though.

Before long, the glass guy brought over the projector lens and another camera lens.

Mourn grinned and gestured that Zara help install that too. He was excited about getting the hologram back up and running.

and no, he still hadn't actually contacted Vestia about those funds. Didn't occur to him.

---

Satisfied that this was indeed Unity, Web headed toward the docks where he assumed Vestia would be.

Zara nodded and got to work installing those lenses too. Like Mourn, she was excited to see Amity repaired, although in her case she was most excited about the hologram technology. Was it really as high resolution as Mourn had said? It seemed hard to believe.
Once she'd installed the lenses, she stepped back, letting Mourn power on the little drone.

Meanwhile the glass guy was having the computer make as many more camera lenses as Mourn had requested. Yeah, Vestia might have questions later. Oh dear.

~~
Asher and Starr were heading back to Vestia, so they'd probably spot Web since he was heading there too.
"Oh, I think that's Web," Asher said to Starr. Judging by the clothes, and the way he walked, anyway. "We should go say hi." He looked somewhere between concerned and happy, he liked Web and he always worried about the guy while he was gone.

Mourn didn't really think about the future much, he'd deal with Vestia when the time came, and when he remembered.
Rightr now he was far too excited about a repaired hologram.

he powered the drone on. "Projector should be fix now, you try yes?"

The drone rose awkwardly, moved away from the table and gained height rapidly, the hologram flickering to life. It was a little glitchy, the image rolled and juddered occassionally but to be fair, the drone HAD been shot several times at this point. That it still ran at all was remarkable.

As Mourn had claimed, when the hologram wasn't glitching out, it was extremely clear.
A 7 foot tall, lanky Aketi wearing a crimson and charcoal grey uniform.

Amity smiled. "Ahh yes, this is much better. Thank you." He nodded politely to those around him.

Mourn cheered. "We got hologram back!"

---