Walking in on the conversation like usual, John walked past the captain and his left sock, and removed a small grate. Ducking into the hole that lead towards the wires John briefly cut in between the captain and R3N. 

"Oi cap'n, check the heat gauge for me will ya?" 

A moment later the heat gauge would spike as a snap and some flaming noise sounded from the hole. 

"Did it signal extreme overheating? Yeah? Good, means it's still working."

Crawling back out of the hole, John headed straight for the heat gauge, positioning himself next to the captain. Without any delay, he smashed the gauge with his elbow and grabbed the sock from the captain's hand. 

"Sock's just fine cap'n, matter of fact, it's perfect for the job. Anyhow, I think I've got the gist of what you're pulling here, so here's our story; our heat gauge broke a little while back, but since we were near a landing spot we decided to leave it be. However, we just heard some disturbing noise and found our systems overheated."

He briefly paused, seemingly thought about something and dryly noted "Ah, and you can't send Mei-mei on there if you're planning on using that EMP device on them rather than ourselves, would make her feel crap and as well as fry her gear."