Milliways is quiet, today; not deserted, but the booths and tables are more empty than full. The fireplace is blazing, the stars are exploding, and a kobold sits at the otherwise-empty bar, chatting with her over a milkshake.
Blue sends a bot, and the kobold appears in short order. She grins at the *Mutes and then at Blue when she sees that they've managed the fork. (Blue's face starts to dissipate, but she quickly looks away and he reasserts himself.)
"Ready for me to have a look?"
A swarm of about twenty hoverbots in various styles appears on the bar and lift off to form a cloud around *Mute and the kobold, joined by the one that's been holding the door open.
"Great, let's go."
So her clumsy industrial droid rolls over to the door, waits for it to be released, then opens it. //Traditonal *Mute disappears from the droid and re-appears on a screen in the hallway.
"Welcome to the Mugunghwa."
The kobold grins and bows, then takes a moment to concentate. "Nothing very unusual here, for your world. I definitely can't telport the ship, but I should be able to teleport things to it."
Meanwhile, the botswarm hovers in the doorway. After a few moments, one starts beeping, and then the rest pick up the chorus. As soon as the kobold is done speaking, one of the bots speaks in Green's voice. "*Mute, it's not terribly urgent, but you have a bit of a radiation leak."
"Ugh, of course we do. Is it clear enough there's some evidence we can show to the Council and kick them into actually doing something? I'm supposed to have a security override, but they took that away from me too."
"There's a good chance that the master password is in the Emperor's rooms, if we want to just go take it. It's not like he's the officially elected captain, he took power by fiat."
A bot sporting a prominent meter with its hand firmly in the yellow joins the swarm. "Will I do?"
"I can teleport through walls, if I know what wall to teleport through," the kobold tells //Reformed *Mute.
"If I call a meeting and lead with something sufficiently shocking to mark it as a turning point and turn out to have admin access again, I think they'll listen. They'll probably kind of hate me because I'm pushing around older noblemen, but they'll also probably accept it, depending on how I word things. Especially if I frame it as something good for them. And there's a limit to the kind of damage they can do, if they decide to object violently."
The kobold takes off her necklace and drapes it over the industrial droid. "That's a translator spell, it has about a ten meter range."
When //Reformed *Mute brings up the schematics, she disappears, teleporting past two or three walls at a time along the most direct route.
"You know what would be great for that is 'I've regained contact with Earth.' I think they'd cooperate and then insist on getting the chance to speak to Earth, it's a big part of their, mythology, for lack of a better word."
"Good. Him? I couldn't decide, so I tried to stay neutral. Anyway. Blue, if you want to have a look at the reactor, here's a connection to its interface, and a connection one of the droids down there..."
The kobold will find themself moving through workshop and storage areas, then some empty maintenance walkways, then a life support vestibule, then a series of hydroponic gardens, eventually up through offices and private residences.
"I suppose I never did ask. I'm used to it being a fairly safe assumption."
One of the other bots chimes an acknowledgement as Blue accesses the reactor and starts reporting to *Mute on what he finds: Mostly a lack of proper maintenance over many years, leading to both the radiation leak and a dramatic drop in production. She should be able to run the engines and life support at the same time, but with the reactor giving only 40% of its intended power... not so much.
"Okay. Is there a way to get it working correctly again?" There probably is. Especially if you account for Bar, who can probably provide some of the parts if not any fuel. It's a very well-built reactor, and also modular.
The marked spot on the schematics is an extremely decorated, very fancy set of rooms near the front of the ship. There is a maid in that one over there, cleaning. The room marked as likely to contain the master password is locked and empty.
The kobold can't see the maid to avoid her, but she can be in and out so quickly and quietly that she's unlikely to be spotted regardless. 'port!
Is there anything in this fancy locked room that looks like it might be the password?
The *Mutes both go silent, deep in thought.
The fancy locked room has three full bookshelves and a computer on a desk with a number of pieces of paper scattered near it. One of them is, indeed, the password.
It's at this point that a squad of six wheeled bots scoots through the door and present themselves to both *Mutes to be taken ownership of. Their handshake information says that they're radiation-scrubbers currently answering to Green.
"I'm sure Blue can do it; he just needs time to figure out how."
The kobold: doesn't read. But she's familiar enough with the concept of computers and their passwords to recognize potential lousy infosec when she sees it. She gathers up all the papers on the desk, notes the room's location so she can teleport directly back to it later, and returns to the group.
"Thanks. Let's see..." //Tradtional *Mute looks through the papers with one of the robots' arms.