It had been almost an hour since the message had come over the comm, and Rati was beginning to wonder if he was being pranked. After standing against the door for nearly 15 minutes, tensed and ready for action, he slipped back into the launch bay and peered around the corners.<br/><br/>Nothing.<br/><br/>Rati slumped against the door for a moment, confusion and relief blended together on his features. It would have been difficult telling which emotion held the majority. After a moment, he shrugged and returned to the machine shop, scanning the equipment logs for parts. There wasn't much here, but he recalled the apparent size of this dead ship before his shuttle was dragged aboard and turned into an artificial idiot's hostage. There had to be other launch bays, other machine shops somewhere; he just had to find them.<br/><br/>There was a small workman's bag lying on a nearby table, heavy grease stains marring the once bright white fabric. Rati grabbed it, stuffed it with a few scattered tools and began to make for the launch bay exit. May as well carry a few tools, he reasoned; one never knew what might come in handy on a deserted (and possibly haunted) starcrawler.<br/><br/>He had just ducked out of the bay when he pressed a hand against the wall to hold his balance and keyed on the vibrations, maybe 40m away and advancing. Loud, clanky, whirring, like someone rolling an oversized bag of busted parts down a medbay hall by hand. And just beneath the oncoming cacophony, the accompanying sense of footsteps...soft...stealthy...the security force!<br/><br/>Rati froze in place for a moment, listening.<em>Jersa</em>, it sounded like an army approaching! He slipped back into the launch bay, struggled vainly against the stuck door before realizing it wasn't going to move any further, and decided to hide back in the machine shop, to make his stand. With his back flat to the wall, tools rattling in the bag draped over his shoulder, Rati prepared for a blaze of glory.<br/><br/>As the platoon reached the launch bay, he called out fiercely:<br/><br/>"I'm armed! I've got...uh...an ion bla-er, cannon! And I'm not afraid to use it...!"<br/><br/>Unfortunately, Rati's personal translator echoed his sentiments in a much more polite tone. But on the bright side, it masked the tremor in his voice quite nicely...<br/>