Rati wandered through the launch bay, inspecting the junked 'pods with a growing sense of disappointment. Every one of them had been cannibalized, or near about, some with great jagged holes in the hull, some stripped and gutted bare. A few were missing the dm cores, some were absent their nav systems, a couple had lost their cup holders. He collapsed to the floor, leaning back against one of the less-incomplete 'pods, banging his head back against the cold metal in frustration. Then he glanced to his right.<br/><br/>Machine shop.<br/><br/>Rati jumped to his feet and dashed toward the door, hope blooming once again as he struggled to part the heavy doors. He managed enough space and squeezed through, and was not a little delighted to find himself in a near-fully stocked and maintained workshop. Tools, parts, mechpiece-programmed synth chambers and conversion arrays, shelves upon shelves of inert matter just waiting to be rezz'ed into useful material.<br/><br/>And then that hope was hope was clubbed over the head and chucked in a sack.<br/><br/>A voice crackled over the intercom, soft and almost friendly. No language Rati was familiar with, but his personal com system was equipped with some decent translation software capable of over 4.5 thousand languages and set to activate at the detection of external speech. The message was less than well-received.<br/><br/>"Aw, you've<em>got </em>to be joking," Rati muttered, rifling through the drawers and cabinets for a weapon, or a tool to use as one. The choices weren't quite what one would consider overwhelming. He snatched a small, pointy magdriver off of a wall hook and moved to the door, positioning himself as tactically as he knew how. Which, as a glorified garbage collector, wasn't much. He peered around the corner, listening for the tromp of boots or the whir of charged plasma rifles, glancing disgustedly at the "weapon" in his hand.<br/><br/>'Honestly, what am I gonna do, ask them to stand still and be magnetized to death a cm at a time?'<br/><br/>He tossed the driver aside, tightened his fists and settled in to wait....<br/>