The away team, having landed themselves inside the Brobdingnagian alien spacecraft via one of the spherical disintegrated sections, peered down the corridor into darkness. By the illumination of their suit lights they could see that the passage was about four metres high by six wide, and every surface was covered in ornate organic decorative enameling and embossing.
I completely forgot to take into account the fact that they had no gravity to work with, which made things much simpler for everyone than it had any right to be. Ah well, there's always next time.
Lee noted that their tether, where it crossed the edge of the disintegration area, was being alarming cut and frayed by the more-than-razor-sharp edge, and promptly took steps to reattach it at a point where it wouldn't make contact with anything sharp.
Searching down the corridor, they found an oval panel that seemed door-like — probably not a pressure door, as there were no seals in evidence — but no sign of any way to open it, until eventually Janey found a group of what might be... buttons? If so, they did nothing. Then she realised that there was probably no power, so of course they'd do nothing. She searched further, looking for the emergency override controls, and after a while of trying to figure out what was just decoration and what was an actual component, she found a small panel and managed to get it open.
Inside was a handwheel and locking bar, and also an array of pipes. Even here the mania for decoration held sway, with the handwheel cast in a mandala of animal (?) forms. She quickly figured out the mechanism, and the door rolled away into its wall socket.
Behind the door they found a small room, missing a perfectly circular chunk of its far wall, and thus open to space. Three corpses floated in chairs facing a wall of dials, gauges, and small glassy screens. Hopeful of being able to jury-rig some repairs to their own ruined navigation and jump-control systems with the alien tech, Janey and Esakai'nos attempted to detach one of the screens... and completely buggered it. Then they ruined another one, but on the third try they managed to get one more-or-less intact.
Esakai'nos noticed that the corpses (all very tall, cone-headed humanoids) had what appeared to be sidearms in holsters at their sides, so he nicked all three. Alas, Janey and Lee noticed, and decided that they should have one each.
And right about then...
Back on the ship, Patience had been alerted by the ship's computer of an anomaly out in the debris ring around the planet. A piece of... something... was moving contrary to the drift of all the rest of the debris, and it soon became apparent that it was on a course that would intercept (roughly) with their position.
She alerted the away team, who made haste to get back to the ship, and they decided to go silent and turn off their active sensors and try to hide. Using only vectoring thrusters, Patience drifted the ship over to a cluttered part of the hull that she hoped would give them visual cover, and they grappled the ship to the hulk.
Unfortunately, with active sensors inactive they were effectively blind, and had to rely on optical means alone of keeping track of their bogey. They knew the part of the sky they should be looking at, but even so the chances of actually seeing anything before it was very close indeed were minimal. Nevertheless, against all odds, Lee did manage to pick it up with his binoculars when it was perhaps half an hour out.
In the meantime, Janey, in the lower-deck engineering section, got their looted screen open, and found the innards almost incomprehensibly complex. It was full of mechanical componentry, like a huge and complicated steam-powered watch, with only minimal electronics. Huh. That does not bode well for any kind of compatibility with their own systems.
There was some discussion about who or what the bogey might be, and eventually the generally accepted most likely scenario they came up with was that it was maybe an escape pod from the mega-ship, coming back to see what the activity was about.
Lee decided to camp outside in a good fire position, just in case. Patience (with an optimism bordering on naivete) thought that perhaps the two groups might be able to help each other — maybe the aliens might be able to fix Our Heros' systems, and they could all go home. Maybe.
They switched their active sensors back on and activated a distress beacon, and Patience opened up the forward cargo ramp to indicate their lack of hostile intent.
And then...
From outside, Lee was following the process of the pod, and as it approached closely he saw it disgorge a line of smaller dots, which rapidly formed into four groups of three. It didn't take long before they got close enough to distinguish them as suited humanoids.
Three of the groups landed out of his line of sight, but one group of three landed around his position... he elected not to attempt to fight it out at this time, and they disarmed him and walked him back down to the ship, he clumping along on his magnetic boots while they floated gracefully around him on three sides.
Meanwhile, another group had burned their way up through the engineering floor hatch, forcing Janey to scramble for her suit helmet. Another group entered through the cargo ramp. The fourth combat team are nowhere to be seen.
The Good Guys were herded together, disarmed and stripped of their space suits, and locked into the starboard cargo lock. Esakai'nos noted that (a) the aliens appeared to have only their side-arms, no long guns or heavy weapons, and (b) they did not remove their own suits at all and in fact seemed very reluctant to make any physical contact with Our Heros.
And there we are.
No doubt it will all end up just fine.
