Captain Gemzi faces a worrying mystery
Captain Gemzi had waited, not patiently, but long enough to be really worried. The last communication he'd had with Chuck on the Explorer had been 48 hours ago. He'd reported that everything had been going well after their unfortunate mishap that meant they were carrying extra people. But the Explorer could easily manage two extra humans on board.
Protocol was to contact base at least once every 24 hours. Chuck might be a bit green, but he was good with obeying rules. Gemzi knew that Vayr would follow protocol as well and Leeli was as trustworthy as the ship board  computer when it came to her job.
So this radio silence was troubling to say the least. Twiddling his fingers, Gemzi started deploying damage control and intel.
"Who's available?" he asked his second in command.
Names were rattled off with locations, specialities and what mission they were currently on. It appeared not many of Gemzi's crew was free to take on an extra job.
"Get Laissa." he orderd his Tralvisk.
The two dog-like creatures got up and set to their task while Gemzi started the laborous job of contacting the very best in damage control. Contacting this group of hackers was not easy, some of his leads had already been shut down, but Gemzi was resourceful and had a head to rival a rhino in hardness. Finally he found what he was looking for.

The pirates get commissioned
Saybia was manning the complex' main computer when the coded message came in. She eyed it warily and decided it could wait a bit. After she'd sipped her first cp of coffee and was feeling more awake with the setting of the sun (artificially recreated in their dubmerged complex), she looked at the message once more.

Team Lost.
Last know coordinates: xxx-yyy-zzz-t°
Seeking information on where they are
Also need to check damage done by unsanctioned abduction.
More information in the attachment.

Who was this Captain Gemzi anyway? Could he be trusted? The pale-skinned night-lover downed another cup of coffee and decided a background check was in order. That and a virus scan of the attachment and a verification of the U-IP address that had sent the mail.
Saybia sighed. This would be a lot of work. And she'd prefer to have a quiet night. Luckily someone eager to prove himself was close by.
"Anything wrong?" Zoul asked.
The slender space-elf was as usual, flawlessly dressed and styled. He would look more in place in some trendy club instead of hunched over a desk, looking at code.
Before Saybia could reply, Teyku jumped in: "She's disappointed and frustrated."
The lizard-enby was quite peculiar since he could switch genders. Currently he presented as male but he'd confessed that his genetic make-up meant that he would switch to female in an environment with fewer females than males. He was very sensitive to pheromones and also quite annoying when it came to interpersonal relations as Tekryu always knew what everyone was thinking on some level.
"Thank you but I can talk for myself." Saybia said.
Teyku shrugged and returned to his work.
"But if you feel inclined to help, you can do a background check for me." Saybia continued, turning to Zoul.
Saybia divided the work and the trio of hackers set to work, looking for clues and information. The only sounds disturbing the silence being the tapping of fingers on keyboards and the whirring of computers. For now they were doing basic checks. If things got more serious they would turn to VR-goggles and deep-immersion in the Net-pods. But those things could be dangerous so they would not use them unless necessary.
Time ticked on until Teyku said:
"These earthians need better security. It's almost pathetic how easy it tis to get into their systems."
"Count yourself lucky." Saybia shrugged.
"A little challenge might be more satisfying." Zoul shrugged in Teyku's defense.
"Are you having any luck with the background check?" Saybia asked.
"Captain Gemzi seems legit. I have found some mention of him and a few reports. He seems like a relic of an older age but apparently someone who can be trusted to get work done."
"Well, he did find us." Tekyu observed, "How about the whereabouts of the ship?"
Saybia sighed again.
"Not much more than was in the report. Regular pings until the moment they vanished. I do believe I found part of a garbled mayday message but no mention of where they headed. This seems like it'll take all night to decode." she said.
"Need help?" Zoul asked
"Only if you know the specs of this ship and what it would recommend."
"We could ask Kleo." Tekyu pointed out.
Saybia and Zoul looked at each other. Sometimes Tekyu did have his moments of clarity. Kleo didn't do much of the coding, but she was a gifted mechanic so she might know more of the spaceship mentioned and more importantly, about the computer system it was equipped with. If they could duplicate it, they could triangulate where it would have taken the missing team.
"Well what are you waiting for?" Saybia asked Tekyu, "Go call Kleo!"

Kleo hurried to the command room. She'd been pinged to come and that usually meant trouble. She'd been keeping up with the maintenance of the complex. Considering they were deep underwater, that would always be her first priority. Maybe someone wanted to complain about the defunct coffee machine in the mess.
"What's wrong?" she said when she entered the main computer room.
Saybia turned to face their mechanic and was quick to explain:
"Nothing's wrong, we just needed your experience."
Kleo visibly relaxed and waited for Saybia to relay the necessary information. Frowning, the mechanic sat down behind the computer and started checking make, model and maintenance details of the vanished ship.
Finally, Kleo sat back and said:
"Do you want the bad news or the good news first?"
"Start with the bad." Teyku said, "That way we get a good twist at the end."
"Whatever." Zoul shrugged.
"We'll need both anyway." Saybia agreed.
"Okay, the bad news is: Considering where they were, wherever they went, it would be a planet without contact to the modern universe. The only planets in that quarter are old colonies and many have gone rogue. Even more, a lot of them are uninhabitable."
"And the good news?" Saybia prompted.
"Well, they had the latest updates and if their computer was functioning, it would have guided them to the most developped of them, Planet E8-x5k, although it's natives don't call it that, which is known for it's dragons. Which as you know are a protected species so we can't openly land on them but at least they have a good chance of being alive."
"Your good news is still pretty bleak." Teyku observed.
"I tried." Kleo shrugged.
"We can at least give Captain Gemzi our findings and collect our pay."
Saybia typed up a quick note, encrypted it and hit sent. Almost at the same time, alarms started sounding...

Gir, the complex' Female Ork guard, was patroling at the time. Her two thumb Draeckos Lizzy and Drake, were flying slightly up ahead, chirping to let her know things were clear as usual. Gir smiled and threw little treats at her two pets. Some might prefer a more thrilling life, but Gir was quite happy in the complex. She had a lot of freedom when it came to doing her job and the pay was good. At times she was able to help with the haching and that was fun too.
Despite Gir's rigorous checks and the added security she'd implemented, alarms started sounding suddenly. Gir froze and her mind immediately identified the alarm. Not a physical attack, but a virtual one. Someone must have triggered a tracking virus.
Gir hurried, Lizzy and Drake followed her, waiting for commands. But since they could not help in this case, Gir just called out to them:
"Keep close!"
As soon as she reached the central computer room, Gir announced:
"We're under virtual attack!"
Computer screens were showing garbled code, flashing in different colours.
"We figured!" Teyku said to no-one in particular.
No-one paid him any mind as everyone hurried to the computers to do damage control.
Gir logged in and went to work. The others were more adept at debugging, but the protocol she'd created made use of everyone's specialties. Her task was to quarantine  parts of the computer, then scan them and shut them down. It was a lot like running around a virtual town locking down houses. Kleo was doing much the same, shutting down connections between different set-ups, leaving Saybia, Tekyu and Zoul to look for the origin of the virus.
About an hour in, Teyku suddenly said:
"Zoul is sleepy."
Without batting an eyelash, Gir gave the command:
"Drake, keep Zoul awake!"
The little thumb draecko happily landed on the elf's shoulder and started chittering in his ear, pecking at it when he didn't respond fast enough.
"Good job!" Gir praised although Zoul's groans didn't sound all that happy.

Half a day later, all of them were tired but they'd contained the virus and had gotten rid of it. They'd done additional checks and had sent a nasty bug of their own right back to the origin f the virus.
"I'd love to see what happens next, but I need a vacation." Saybia sighed.
"It's true." Teyku commented, noticing the actual signs of stress.
"I wouldn't mind a little time off." Zoul agreed.
"If we all go, i can put the complex in lockdown. Anything trying to attack us will be fried for the trouble." Gir said, she felt personally insulted that anyone had tried to attack them at her watch. Even if it had been virtual and that wasn't her area of expertise.
"Well if everyone wants to go, I did come across an add while investigating those dragon places. Apparently there's something called 'the Swim' happening at a place called Twoarth."
Kleo paused and then went on: "It has free lodging, a beach, a pier and of course dragons."
"I say we go." Saybia said, "You have me at free lodging."

Off to the Beach Resort the pirates go
in which the five take a vacation and end up with dragons.

[STORY] 100101 [GIR] -,- [KLEO] -,- [SAYBIA] -,- [TEYKU] -,- [ZOUL]

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