"Alright, everyone dismissed" Stryker said to those still gathered around the War Room, he turned his attention to his datapad "Get your gear in order and be ready to move when we hit the system. Anyone who needs an ammo top-up, see Grayson in the Armory. According to this, there's a keyboard embedded in a wall hatch alongside the armory door, type your requests in there and he's supposed to get a notification on the Armory terminal about it if he's in there. Be ready to move"
He left the Armory, setting combat roles for the Attack Platforms on the datapad as he walked. He also assigned a download of basic piloting to 772 to ensure the drone would be able to fly the shuttle over to the Helsin station. Stryker arrived at the cockpit and took his seat. He spoke briefly before turning his attention back to the datapad, intending to familiarize himself with the ship's weapon systems for the remainder of the trip.
"Sepitan, increase the burn by another 20, see if we can shave some time off that ETA"

[@Tickout]

Grayson placed the other two guns back into storage, took his seat at the desk and began to disassemble the Veritas.
"Ah, don't mention it lad. Give me a tight 15 and I'll have her all shined up for ya" A screen embedded in the desk's surface lit up. Request from Stryker for weapon kits to outfit the drones with.
"I best get to it then, lots of work in the next couple hours. Listen, if ya don't come back for her, I'll track ya down in a little while"

[b]90 MINUTES LATER[/b]

Grayson set the final footlocker down and locked it into a secure position. After sending Maxi off, he'd polished up the Veritas and then got to work assembling the requested weapons together. Then he armored up and called SAL in to help carry everything down to the cargo bay. First, stacking the weapon kits down next to the attack drones, as requested, next placing a few boxes of ammo into the primary shuttle to top up the crew's weapons, and finally bringing his gear down to the secondary shuttle and securing it until needed. He was testing out a portable oxygen tank inside the shuttle when he heard a thump coming from the far corner of the room. With a nod to SAL, he drew one of his BlackHammer pistols and inched towards the source of the racket. Rounding a tall stack of storage crates, Grayson found himself facing what appeared to be an AI core tower and a human-shaped drone who was tugging at a crate, trying to dislodge it from the pile.
"Drop it, hands in the air mate" Grayson said, raising his gun. SAL stomped out of the shuttle with his shotgun raised.
"I will alert Stryker"

If the robot or AI program planned on talking it's way out of this situation, it wasn't doing a very good job. Grayson and SAL stood by in silence, guns still trained on the stowaways until the elevator arrived, signalling Stryker's arrival.
"Alright" the captain said to the robot, a hand on his own holstered pistol "Talk. Who are you, how'd you get on this ship, what are your intentions, and why are you smuggling around an AI core?"
"It was tryin to get at those two crates along the bottom" Grayson said "Doesn't seem like they're on the shipping manifest"
"Ok then, one last question... what's in the crates?"

[@Azereiah]