[u]Hangar Bay, [i]HMS Tempest[/i][/u]
Ishpetyr stared at the home-made scanning device. Honestly, what was the point of having sensitive and carefully calibrated equipment if every scientist was just going to use their own cobbled-together scrap? If he wasn't one of the few tangible links to Icarus, Abel would have done more than just roll his eyes when Bishop's back was turned.

"You have your departments, I have my toys," Bishop said.

Ishpetyr repressed a sigh.

"What a shame about that planet. Naquadria is extremely rare. If only-" Ishpetyr had to stop himself. Be likeable. You'll only earn distrust and hatred if you aren't likeable. Show humanity. "If only the parameters had been more carefully calculated. I'm sure many lives wouldn't have had to be pointlessly thrown away."

That seemed nice enough. The better friends he was with this man, the more information about what happened he could get. The initial scans from the debris were coming in. Nothing interesting. As far as he could tell, it was a perfectly ordinary chunk of alien spaceship wing. How dull. Ishpetyr suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to add people to his list. [i]Medical personnel.[/i] Befriend the doctor, learn secrets. If he could arrange to injure someone, and then casually check up on them, carefully noting the patients around...

But whom?

Ah. A friend in need (even if that need is visits to a bedside) is a friend indeed. Ishpetyr casually recalibrated the quantum emissions spectrographic unit to overload on the next use. He then activated another instrument to feed the first one nominal readings, so that the QESU would give no indication that anything was wrong.

"When you're done with playing with your 'toy', would you mind taking a quantum emissions spectrograph?" Ishpetyr asked.