There's no place like home

[Jazzi]

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The light strips flicker overhead, casting a dim light that matches the mood of the rooms occupants. Sullen, dour expressions from the twenty or so people gathered around a hexagonical table in the centre of the room. Emitted from a projector at it's centre, a bright-blue lined outline of the Fortaleza with orange sections denoting the newly discovered passages and work ducts. For once, the musicbot was silent.

"Look, Thallia. We have to face up to the reality here. There's no way we can pressurise enough of the station to house and power the kind of containment the artifact needs. Few of us are engineers, and none of us have the means to patch up the swiss cheese of a hull this thing has without drawing attention. If you weren't so keen on housing that blasted relic here, it'd barely work. As it stands, this doesn't work for any of us."

"This was a fools errand, and you're the fool Thorn."

"Jasmine, wai-"

"Darren, I'm serious. Thal, we came with you because we believe we'd be studying this K'Vosh relic. That we'd be doing our parts to protect people from wayward A.I.... and all we've been doing is scrounging about in the dark like a pack of Junkers looking for a score. Now, we find out we can't even get that to work, and you're becoming a nervous wreck."

With elbows on the table edge, Thallia nursing a newly lit cigarette between two fingers, glances up at Jasmine with a sharp glare. Pressing it to her lips, inhaling, she moves her attention across the room. Nods from most of the others present.

Leaning back in her chair, smoke rising from her mouth, she looks down at the ashtray catching the spent end of the cigarette with a melancholic frown.

"You're right. This ha...hasn't worked out as I had hoped. As we had hoped as a sanctuary for our ambitions." Closing her eyes for a moment or two as she rubs her temple in thought, those watching hestitate with any response.

"I'm go...going to go to Newport Station. Perhaps there is an op...opportunity to start things up there. Anyone who wants to come wi...with me is welcome. For those of you who don't, we'll swing by Cologne first. Sound good?"

"What about the bloody rel-"

"That's my concern now. Busy yourself with packing up, Jasmine. We're headed to Heisenberg shortly." Thorn stands up swiftly, cigarette leaving a faint trail behind her as she leaves the briefing room.

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