Coming out of stasis was the worst, like a shitty hangover. The lack of light for six month made her eyes hypersensitive and the combination of the IV feeding gel with an empty stomach left her somehow both starving and nauseous. Worse than a hangover, really. It's not like she could cure this with more drinking.<br/><br/>"Specialist Moon," the LT. barked, his voice loud and carrying in the haunting quiet of the ship. He wasn't even coming off angry, or even stern, but her eardrums  throbbed at his words, paradoxically making him harder to hear. Followed by a brief examination by the handsome doctor. Eris didn't even get a chance to lament how short the examination was, because her head pounded so ear each time he insisted she open her eyes long enough for him to check her cognitive faculties. It wasn't even until the end of his examination that he gave her an injection that would mitigate the worst side effects of the stasis, leaving her to finally open her eyes all the way once he walked off. Just in time for Lt West to bark some more orders at her, to have her interpret the distress signals they received for inauthentic signatures.<br/><br/>She joined the android and the hot, butch Divinity soldier chick. Shit, what was her name again? Eris swore she knew, but couldn't remember for the life of her. It was something obvious, something on the nose. The sort of name that, upon hearing it, made the listen go "Duh, of course that's her name." Why in the hell couldn't she remember it. Shit, better hope she's not the sentimental type.<br/><br/>"Eh-hem, if you mind?" she asked the two Divinity representative, sneaking past to the two scantily clad women to take a seat at the command console. The computers were good at reading the code, translating it directly, for unambiguous meaning. She was good at interpreting the code, reading the way it had been written, into order to determine it's veracity. She had to determine if this were a legit emergency signal, or a trap laid by pirates.<br/><br/>Pirates were either Eris' lucky break or her worst fucking nightmare. Either they were clever, resourceful pirates, who would clearly seen the immense value in bringing a talented hacker on board, to help them perfect their distress signal traps and AI-overriding protocols, in which case she'd be first mate within 6 month's time. Or they were the insane sort of pirates, the ones who drifted beyond the edges of the solar systems and faced the terrifying void that awaited them first hand, only to come back wrong. They'd just rape her half to death, and carve her up to cannibalize. And in the best case scenario, they'd do it in that order.<br/><br/>Three pods. Two without life signals, and a third with a very weak life sign. Interesting. A very move, if it were indeed a ploy by pirates. Most would get greedy, signalling three pods, with weak life signs, begging for assistance.<i>Please, I put my only child on this craft. Oh please, rescue them! </i>Such signals had gotten so bad it was illegal under most circumstance for a child under the age of 16 to even travel into space. And still, even with most captains knowing so much better, far too many fell for the ploy.<i>What if it's real, just this once? </i><br/><br/>These pirates --if they even were pirates-- were far too clever for that. They didn't overplay their hand. Two pods with corpses, and a third with a survivor, just clinging to life. Not even a drippy message, begging for assistance. Of course, the survivor would be just barely clinging to life. You have to lit a fire under the asses of the captain somehow. It was some good touches, perfectly designed to catch a good Samaritan off guard. Eris estimated that this had 70% chance of being authentic, and a 30% of being her ticket off Ares 8.<br/><br/>"These distress signals are absolutely authentic, sir," she reported back to LT. West. "No signs of forgeries, or manipulations. I see no reason to believe it's solely a trap."