As they gathered to leave the Prize, Astrid’s gaze wandered between them - Herself, Beatrice, Francesca and Denise - and the Captain. “Think the locals might get some wrong message from this?” The engineer grinned. On a subjective note, she could see no way anyone would ever consider Denise to be part of a harem, but hey, weird aliens, anything was possible. And since anything was possible, Astrid decided to rather be safe than sorry and donned the Interior Maintenance Uniform - a combination of soft and hard armor meant to protect from the hazards of shipboard engineering, but Astrid figured it was better than nothing and certainly good enough if some of the flora they encountered on the way was prickly. While Daniels and Lan’thar would probably like to study exotic herbal toxins, she didn’t care one bit to be the guinea pig. And such a suit could be a good way of passively letting the aliens - fuck, [i]they[/i] were the aliens here - the suit was a good way of letting the [i]locals[/i] know antagonizing the Prizes’ crew would lead down dire straits. It also supported a holster for a sidearm and pouches for spare battery packs.

Not long after, Astrid found herself following the contact team into an alien shuttle. “Tall or overcompensating. Religious organizations and delusions of grandeur? Never before seen.” The sarcasm was almost dripping from her tongue as she spoke. “Hmm. Blocky, aerodynamics knowledge might be a bargaining chip with this lot. Must be a bitch to fly, or dependent on computer control. Windows. Structural weakness. Decent acceleration for its shape though, good thrust-to-weight ratio. It’s either light or boasting some monster engines. Chemical rockets or fusion drives. Mmmaybe not fusion drives given the look of the rest of their things.” She mumbled to no one in particular as she paced back and forth through the shuttle’s cargo bay, not even trying to look out the windows on account of her height. 

She finally stopped pacing and turned to Nick and Francesca. “Sooo… What’s the game plan? Politely stand our ground, don’t mention anything about home field defenses and don’t share any information that could be weaponized?” Astrid did her best to try to sound calm, but her injury once again undermined her efforts.