The chime at her door has Shui putting down her steaming teacup, and tightening her short silk robe.  The woman raises one eyebrow, checking the clock.  Early, still.  Settling feet into her small slippers, she pads lightly to the door, pausing to check her attire.  Decent enough.  With a nod, she triggers the entry, permitting the door to hiss open.

One look is sufficient for diagnosis.  Shui blinks, pushing back her glases.  "Mr. Grady - you appear to be in need of assistance."  Part of her almost drags this out, the better to watch him squirm, but she simply can't.  It isn't in her to make a joke that way.  "Please - come in.  We'll see what I can do about that hangover."

It also isn't in her to be anything but honest regarding medical issues.

Beneath the belly of the ship, the ramp lurches into action with its usual tortured shriek, which brings an equally torturd groan from Jett as he steps into Shui's room, which doubles as the medbay.

Kal-chan looks at Saskia, shaking his head, "I hope she can help him.  In that condition, even the Scouts wouldn't take him."

Jago places a call to a likely-looking navigator, and while he waits for the answer, he notes that the gunner he had his eye on has the same comm code.  This could be good, two crewmembers who know each other already.  Anyway, it's not like he has a lot of choice.  The second best gunner on the list has experience with mining lasers, while the next navigator on the list has only worked on local shuttles.

As the ramp hits the ground, the robots shuffle their bulk around to watch as Yas, armed to the teeth, as always when on duty in port (though rumours that she takes at least a couple of guns into the shower with her may be exaggerated) steps out to greet them.  The overseers come over to Yas.

"Morning, Miss, we're here to collect a load of fruit." the older of the two says, handing the Security Chief a wad of paperwork.  "Maybe your engineer should take a look at that ramp, when he gets a minute, eh?"

Jett sits on the edge of the bed, eyes unfocussed while Shui sorts out some pills for him.  His eyes are bleary and red-rimmed, and his voice is cracked and weak, as he speaks to her.  _{"I'm going to sign up today.  It seemed like a good idea yesterday, but today I've got this damned... virus.  I can't see, my voice is gone, I have a headache, and something I ate doesn't agree with me."}

Jago switches the comm off.  The two best-looking candidates can be here in an hour, for interviews.  Seems they're staying at the TAS hostel in this same port.

"Security Chief Crow.  She would, if we hadn't gotten used to it.  Makes a nice burglar alarm too," Yasmine replies with a small grin and then checks out the paperwork while eying the two men and the robots.

"Looks fine to me.  The fruit's all yours, mister," comes the reply after a few moments and she steps aside to let the men and the robots pass.  "I bet they like fruit here, eh?  Can't grow much of it, I gather," she says to small talk a little while she checks out the other guy a bit more.  Not The Hunk, but not too bad to rest the eyes on anyway.  At least it gives her something to do while she baby-sit them.  "Been on Vilis long?"

Shui frowns.  True, it looks like a hangover.  But what if it isn't?  What if it's something worse?  Assumptions can be deadly.  "Sit still.  I will verify the cause of the illness...should it truly be due to over-intoxication, there are a few things I can do."  Taking a medscanner, she quickly (and painlessly) snatches a sample of blood and then (with a swab) mucous membrane from his throat.  Then, while the sample is determining results, Shui checks him more thoroughly herself, searching for signs of infection.

Jett looks pathetic, every bit the antithesis of the potential hero, as Shui checks him over.  The scanner pings, and she picks it up to check the readout, faitly certain of what she'll find, having already checked him over the old-fashioned way.


The robots start their work, hauling the cargo containers out of the hold, and loading them onto the vehicles, as instructed by the overseers.  It looks like Vilis is one of those worlds where they trust robots to do the work, but not to decide how it should be done.  There are a lot of places like that.

The younger man smiles at Yas.  "You could say that, yes.  Thirty three years.  Since I was born.  Now Arbel, there, he moved here ten years ago, from Garda.  He hates it here, and... "
"No I don't!"
"And he does nothing but moan about the place.  Then again, he moans about Garda too."
"What I really do... oh... my truck with that... What I really do moan about is why I let my daughter move in with you."

And so the unloading goes on.


Jago makes his way back to his cabin.  Just time to get cleaned up before the candidates show for their interviews.  Plus he needs to get those two envelopes out for Jett and Kal-chan.  He opens the safe...


In the lounge. Kal-chan and Saskia continue their discussion of Jett's chances of surviving his first encounter with a Navy petty officer, given his current condition.

"Thirty-three?  Got a couple of years on me then," Yas fibs and smiles her best smile, knowing she does not look her age and could probably get away with claiming to be closer to 30 today still.  Given this is how far this "flirt" is to go, she feels she can take the chance to feel young.  No harm in that, is there?

"Ah, so this is a family business then," she jokes as she watches over the procedure of unloading.  "I'm the kind of girl that likes to roam around, I’m never in one place, I roam from port to port...  A wanderer, you know.  No roots yet," she contiues and suddenly is struck silent as a thought occurs to her.  Her eyes loses themselves in the distance for a moment before she shakes her head and resumes her vigilance, although with a slight hint of melancholy in her eyes.

Shui taps her foot on the ground for a moment, before pulling her glasses down a touch to glare at Jett.  "Mr. Grady," she says quietly, "you are suffering from a hangover, nothing more.  Now - being as this is your last day on the ship, I will do my best to assist you find your chosen profession.  However, you might recall my advice to the crew when I first came aboard..."

"Always tell the doctor the truth."

Turning away, she begins to work with some of the medicines.  "It speeds diagnostics immesurably.  What I will do, now," she continues, changing subject with bewildering rapidity, "is give you a treatment.  Consider it a going-away present, given my former lack of interest in 'curing' such afflictions."  Coming up with something that will take away much of the pain, as well as expell some of the alcohol from his system, Shui turns back.

"You do not have to show up at the recruitment office now.  I suggest you page Kal-chan, or I could do that for you, and ask to leave in four hours.  You return to your room, and drink half of this - not only will it assist your illness, but it will stabilize your electrolytes.  Follow it with two hours of sleep, the other half and a glass of water, and then another hour's sleep.  I can wake you, myself, at those times, should it be necessary."  She frowns.  "A shower will be critical before you seek your future, Mr. Grady.  You will reek of alcohol, given the amount you consumed.  While this will not prevent them from accepting you - indeed, it might hasten the process - it will ensure you do not receive a good placement."

Jago does a double take as he opens the safe, and pauses before reaching in gingerly to extract a couple of brown envelopes.  Closing the safe with deliberate care, Jago is in thoughtful mood as he moves away and out towards the cargo hold.

Seeing Kal-chan in the lounge, Jago stops to give him one of the envelopes and wish him luck before moving on in search of Yasmin.

Jett nods glumly as he listens to Shui's directions.  He takes the medication, and  makes his way back to the lounge, where he quickly sees Saskia and Kal-chan sharing a joke.

"I... I'm not feeling well.  Shui says it's a virus of some sort.  Probably picked it up when we went shopping.  I've got to take this stuff, and rest for a couple of hours."

"We can go to the recruiting office a bit later, yes?"

Kal-chan exchanges a look with Saskia, then raises his hand to scratch his nose, but mainly to cover a grin, "Well, I don't know, Jett.  I was hoping to get there early and avoid the rush."

His face drops, and Jett mumbles, "Sorry.  I guess you'll have to go without me then, and I'll... "

He stops, as Kal-chan doubles up laughing.  Finally the marine regains his breath.  "Virus?  Hangover more like.  Go get some rest, and I'll see you later."  He finished up with a slap on the back that almost rattles the navigator's pounding head right off his shoulders.


The robots are hard at work when Jago makes his way out of the ship and finds Yas at the foot of the ramp chatting with the overseers.  Friendly conversation or not, he notes, Yas is still taking her job seriously.

Jago smiles to himself on seeing Yasmin in conversation with the guy by the loading ramp and he stops to watch the unloading for a moment before heading over there, wouldn’t do to cramp her stile now would it.

“I have a couple of guys coming over for interviews,” he tells his security chief, “you can sit in if you like, we can close the ramp once your friends have finished.”

Having drifted away into thoughts for a moment, thoughts she was happy to have Jago interrupt, Yasmine chuckles quietly at the captain as he comments about her friends.

"You got it, capt'n," she replies, sticking to the more polite forms of address in front of these two men.  "Easy enough to find folks who are willing, I bet, we'll see if they got what it takes."  The slightly crooked smile on her lips as she says that would possibly have worried those two men if they had been here already.  Now, it may only give the two robot overseers something to talk about once they have left Profit Margin.

Shui hums quietly to herself as she puts away her medical gear, pausing to tap a couple of commands into her dataglove - in two hours it will remind her to get out in time to say goodbye to her patient, and to make certain he is well.  Sometimes technology does have its uses.

Then she carefully cleans up the last of the detritus of the search, and sits down in her chair, puffing out a breath.  "Well."  The word doesn't quite echo in the lab, due to the equipment, but it might as well have done so.

You need out of here.  She glances at the wind-carven statue, recently purchased.  Not for more trinkets.  You need to get out of here, meet people.  Talk with the crew.  But people don't see the world the same way she does, and sometimes it's difficult.  Weaknesses, stress points, illnesses...these are the things to which her eyes gravitate.

Perhaps Saskia does, at that, though in a different way.  In mechanics, rather than people.

With a sigh, Shui pushes herself to her feet, and pads to the door.  She pauses for a moment, then slips out, listening carefully before heading toward the sound of conversation.

Saskia looks up as Shui comes into the lounge, "Shui!  Hey, the hand's doing good.  Look."  She smiles and raises her hand, turning it in front of her face, then clenching it into a fist, before changing her mind and making it a half fist.  The smile picks up a slightly rueful edge.

"Well, it only hurts if I try to do too much with it, and then only a little, and for a short while."

Shui grimaces at the motion, quickly moving over to put her hand atop Saskia's.  "Nonono, please...."  Removing her hand, she shakes her head with an exasperated half-smile.  "As we doctors are wont to say, if it hurts to do something, do not do it."

Engineers.  She probably went right back to work.

Sitting down, she raises an eyebrow, that frustrated smile still touching the corner of her mouth.  "There are far too many qualifiers in that explanation, Saskia.  'Too much...a little...short time'."  With a sigh, she shakes her head, the smile easing a touch.  "But...I very am pleased to hear that you are on the mend."  Always.  It makes everything - everything - worthwhile.

A line appears across her brow, and she glances around before leaning a touch closer to the other woman, pushing up her glasses.  "Have there been any other 'discoveries', aboard?  Misplaced Navy items?"
This message was last edited by the player at 14:31, Tue 03 Jan 2006.

With Shui's arrival, Jett, looking somewhat nervous, makes for his own quarters.  Kal-chan laughs quietly, as the cabin door closes, and says, "You've got him scared of you, Doc."

He takes a seat, and watches as Shui examines Saskia's hand, wondering what the engineer has done to herself, but not wanting to ask.  Instead he settles for, "So how are you settling in, Doc?  I'm going to miss this place."


Outside, the robots work steadily, and the hold empties quickly.  After about half an hour, the last container is off, and the documentation signed and thumbprinted.  The haulers pull out of the bay, and Yas is about to close the ship up, when two men wander in through the docking bay entrance.

They pause for a moment, checking the bay number and ship name, then walk towards the ramp, where Yas waits.

"All right, what do you boys want then?" Yasmien asks, one hand on her hip and the other holding the rather impressive scattergun, the more deadly end pointing down towards the floor.  She suspect this is the two men that will replace her old shipmates, but she is not about to let her guard down now.  Plus, if she can show who is in charge now - after the skipper, of course - it will save these boys a lot of trouble later on.

Her face is next expressionless as she eyes them from the top to the toe and then back up again, trying to judge what they could be worth - and whether they are cute or not, of course, although that is not something anyone could guess from her visage.  It is more the look at cat would give the mouse, leaving the mouse uncertain whether the cat is just dropping in on a social call or looking for its next dinner - that is, inscrutable.

Saskia shakes her head, "Didn't find anything yet.  I was planning on finishing the rebuild on the drive, probably another three, maybe four hours.  Five tops, then I'm going to start a proper search, same as the one we did in your place."

The engineer takes a sip of coffee, "I can do that while the diagnostic programs are checking the drive.  I'll never be a hundred percent sure, there's just too many places to hide a bug, but I can scan the system logs for anything strange.  That's how Kal-chan spotted his, a tiny power surge that he  happened to notice."

The man on the left is a tall, slim man with snow-white hair and icy blue eyes as well as a pale golden complexion.  He is dressed in a light gray jumpsuit that has the Darrian Confederation Navy insignia over the right breast pocket with a pair of dark sunglasses tucked into the pocket.  He wears black synth-leather jump boots and a pair of black synth-leather driving gloves (though on his left hand is a metallic silver-gray Dataglove computer and on his right wrist is a black sports watch).

Over the jumpsuit tunic, he is wearing a black synth-leather lightweight flight jacket and around his neck he wears a small brass magnetic compass (with the DCN insignia in the background) on a thin chain.  He has a black synth-leather gunbelt around his waist with a revolver in the holster and to Yasmine's trained eyes; she can probably notice the snub pistol worn in a shoulder holster under the flight jacket.

Careful to keep his hands away from his weapons, Alexei takes a moment to assess both the ship and the woman confronting him and Tylen.  Alexei pays close attention to the "hardware" being put on display by the woman before he shifts his focus to her face.  With a friendly smile on his face, Alexei says in a calm, relaxed tone, "Good morning Miss.  My name is Alexei Asimov and to my right is my friend Tylen Orgesh.  Assuming our information is correct, this is the ship Profit Margin correct?

If so then we've come in response to a call issued by the commander of this vessel, Capt. Jago Lanza.  It is our understanding that he is looking for replacement crew to fill the berths of Navigator and Secondary Gunner.  We've made arrangements with Capt. Lanza to schedule an appointment for a job interview for this time."

"Thought as much," she replies with the smallest possible smile, "Hey, Jago, the new guys are here," comes a shout aimed inwards, although somehow her eyes never really leaves the two men.  Her posture shifts to the other foot as she lifts the scattergun up to rest it over her shoulder.  The hand on the hip comes forth to motion to them to walk up the ramp as she turns the side to them.

"Yasmine Crow, Security Chief and First Gunner.  The captain will be with you shortly," she informs them while she waits for Jago to turn up, and possibly the other guy to speak up as well.  "I'll join you during this interview, by the way."

"Well enough, I suspect, though I appear to make Mr. Grady uncomfortable."  She smiles, quickly, there and gone.  Almost a nervous habit.  "I fear he did not take well to my opinion on his illness.  He took it wrongly, though."  She doesn't actually judge Jett on his actions, but merely dislikes wasting important medications on self-created illnesses.

Then again, are not many of our illnesses self-created?

"I was only beginning to get used to this ship."  She looks around, then straight at Kal.  "Now, I must do so all over again, with new people," the doctor continues mournfully.  A small sigh, and Shui cocks her head ot the side.  "You will be missed, Kal-chan - it runs in both directions."

The doctor listens quietly to Saskia's explanation of Kal's discovery of the chip, nodding at all the right parts.  "Hopefully you will find what you seek...or not, as the case may be," she says, with another quick smile.  Having two people here has Shui a trifle nervous, worried about juggling the conversation, keeping track of what to say to whom.  Difficult, sometimes, for her.  "Another way Kal-chan will be missed," she finishes, a small frown touching her lips.

Alexei nodded his head in acknowledgement and moved up the ramp along with Tylen.  In a friendly tone Alexei said, "It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Ms. Crow.  Do you know if Tylen and I are going to be interviewed together or separately?  Have there been many applicants interviewed for the positions thus far?"

Well this is an interesting way to start, still I suppose you can't fault them for be extra careful about security.  Ms. Crow seems a bit "informal" in her address of the Captain, I wonder if that's SOP or merely slack the Captain cuts her because she's an "old hand"?

Hmm... so does the Security Chief attend every meeting with the Captain or just when new people are involved?  I wonder what Tylen makes of his potential senior gunner-in-charge?

"I'm sure it is.  And that's Security Chief Crow, for now.  As for the interview, that's up to the captain," Yasmine replies, not wanting to get too familiar with someone she may kick off the ship in a few minutes, even if she is struggling a little to hide a smirk at the thought of two grown men wanting to be together all the time.  Perhaps that is the way they bend, simply - if so, they will at least leave her alone.  But then, perhaps it was merely a slightly strange question from a nervous guy.

"There might have been a few.  There seems to be a number of people eager to leave this place at the moment," she answers cryptically, after a moments thought.  No need to make them think they pick up the first best to come along, even if Jago no doubt screened away those that were of no interest whatsoever.

Tylen trailed slightly behind Alexei while his eyes skimmed the surrounding area, checking out the ship, and glancing about the dock before coming to rest on Yasmine. He withdrew his sunglasses and smiled politely, checking her over, and wondering how many weapons were concealed on her. She looked sturdy but most likely wasn't as quick as he was. Her aires of authority heavily laden and worn like a huge poncho, leaving no doubt about her complex.

He exchanged a look with Alexei, his own thoughts instantly obvious to his old friend. Then he brushed open his loosely adorned tan synth-bomber sporting an IISS insignia on it, shifting the weight of his two holstered revolvers slightly, amid a trim midsection covered by a red shirt. He did it slowly enough so that he wouldn't raise any alarm from the woman, not wanting a scene before they got to the interview. He nodded to her, "Security Chief Crow, I'm Tylen Orgesh, thank you for having us aboard your ship. So just out of curiosity, how long have you served aboard the Profit Margin?"

"It's not my ship as such, it's Captain Lanza's.  But I've been with him since back then, Mr Orgesh, so I guess I am pretty much a part of it now," Yasmine replies with a nod as she kept a close eye on his every move.  Never knew when some madman looked to get their own passage off this planet in light of the recent news and whatnots.

"Mr. Orgesh, Mr. Asimov, this way, please," comes the next phrase with perhaps a hint more warmth in the voice - but still rather strict and businesslike.  She stands aside to let them pass through the cargo hold and towards Jago's cabin.  "After you, gentlemen," she smiles, although it might be the fact that she gets to have them in front of her in case of trouble that is the cause of the smile - or possibly the chance to see how their "aft sections" are built.

Jago strolls onto the cargo deck with an unlit cigar hanging from the corner of his smile, “I think you’ll find that they built this ship around Captain Crow,” he says with a wink at his security officer, “if you’ll come this way gentlemen, lets get these preliminaries out of the way.”

Jago leads the way back through the hatch to the forward crew lounge and on to his cabin