“Pretty much the conclusion I’d come to,” Jago agrees with a thoughtful nod, “so what do you thing we ought to do with them Shui, just space them, or put them back on their ship and set them adrift?”

Shui raises one eyebrow.  "I was under the impression we would be taking them to the authorities, Captain Lanza."  He's probably joking.  He's likely joking.  She has a difficult time reading the Jago at the best of times.  "I feel rather certain the planetary authorities would be more-than-pleased to lay hands upon those who have been attacking their local traffic."

"Good point.  Have fun," Yas replies, over the com as before, as she steps out of the cargo bay and makes her way through the smaller bay and finally steps out into the hall towards the bridge.

"Nice to get out of this thing," she mumbles to herself as she makes her way forward.  Soon she sees the captain of the other ship - if that is what it is - and grins at him.

"Nice and easy now, I don't want to risk making holes in our panels here," she tells him and pats her assault rifle.  Glancing over towards Tylen's gun pod she sees it occupied.

"Hey there.  Got the downloaded data here, boss," she calls out so Jago will hear her, never really taking her eyes off their guest.

"Jago?" Saskia says quietly over the comms, "I'd like to recommend that, since Yas and Tylen are back, we should move away from Harper's Dream for now."

She doesn't add, because that frelling heap of yotz makes the place look untidy, opting, instead, for the much more professional sounding, "I don't think she's going to break up right away, but she has been under a little strain lately, and we shouldn't risk piggybacking her for too long.  With no power, we can find her again, easily enough, any time in the next few thousand years."

Captain Harper stands looking out of the bridge viewports, acutely aware that he is being watched from the small cubicle at the rear of the bridge.  He can hear whispering back there, but can't make out the words.

Then te woman enters, and he turns to look at her.  Straight away, he can tell, from the fact that she's wearing a vaccsuit, that she's been aboard his ship.  He can't meet her gaze, as she gives him a warning to behave himself, then goes to speak to her own commander, and the medic.


Down in the hold, the ramp closes up, and there is a rush of air and blown dust as Saskia uses the controls currently showing on her panel to repressurise the cargo space.  Tylen and Conrad are now guarding the prisoners in a real atmosphere, rather than just one of fear and concern.

The first prisoner, the young woman, waves a hand at the two guards, and mimes removing her helmet.  Then she stands, waiting.

Alert to any movement, Tylen has the Carbine centred directly between the womans eyes before he recognises the movement as a request to remove helmets. He withdraws, slowly and nods.

The woman reaches up and undogs her helmet, then lifts it clear of the neck ring before placing it on the floor at her feet.  "That's better.  Even the best of those things can get a bit warm after a while.  Is it alright if I help him take his off too?"

"He'll have trouble taking it off by himself, with his arm broken, and he's probably just as uncomfortable as I was."

Again she mimes the removal of a helmet, before pointing to herself and the injured man.

“Indeed Shui, but if we are right, and what Harper says is true, he is not the one, we were to be his first victim.”

“Thanks Yasmin,” Jago adds when his security chief comes in.

“We’ll have to think about what to do with them, meanwhile, would you get them all locked away in stateroom 8 please.”

“Best make sure Dhakhingzuel doesn’t have access to them,” he adds when he’s sure the mike is off and drawing little circles with a finger by his temple.

“You’ve got it Saskia,” he responds to the engineers request over the intercom again, “did you copy that ’Ore Hound’, I’m thinking of heading back to check out the wreck on the asteroid, want to come along?”

Jago leaves the gunnery stations for the more spacious accommodation afforded ion the bridge, and flops back into the familiar comfort of his own chair. He flicks three overhead switches in quick succession and runs his experienced eye over the displays before him.

With a warning of, “stand by everybody,” Jago releases the harpers dream, and edges gently away, applying lateral thrust to cancel the spinning motions that the Profit Margin had adopted to latch on to the other ship.

"You got it, boss.  Here's the crystal, Trigger got the others, some seemingly unused, I'll have him come over with them once these sorry clowns are safely locked away."

"Sushi, perhaps make sure none of our more savoury guests are about before we stomp through the lounge?" Yas says, hands the crystal to Jago and then smiles at Sushi as she suggest making sure the way is clear.  "The air's back in the hold now, so lead the way, please."

Next she turns to their guest with a crooked grin on her lips.

"If you please would follow her, at a safe distance.  I recommend to not trip or sneeze as I might pull the trigger by accident, and yes, I  am a crack shot, so no need to worry about her safety," she tells him and pats her assault rifle.  "Once we're in the cargo hold, tell your crew to behave and do what we ask and you will all live to see another standard day come."

She adopts a hardcore attitude towards the prisoner, not about to show any kind of weakness before him, and to let him know she will not hesitate a split second to do what she says.

"Of course, Captain."  It seems that discussion is to be shelved for the moment, which is the Captain's perogative.  After all, right now they have more important things to do than determine punishments - consolidation is necessary.

"Thank you, Yasmine."  Shui gives the Security Ops a quick bow, then moves back into the area where Captain Harper awaits.  She waits until Yasmine gives the warning - and that is Security's perogative - then motions to Harper.  "Please follow me, sir."

She keeps a safe distance ahead of the man as she heads toward where his crew awaits, her eyes peeled for any sign of angry Vargr.

Harper follows Shui through to the cargo hold where his crew waits for him.  Yas escorts them, her rifle casually held so that it almost doesn't quite point directly at the man.  Almost.

In the hold, the air is chill, the metal of the walls having been exposed to the cold of space, so far from the sun, for some time.  The life support system struggles to warm the place up again.  In spite of the cold, the crew of Harper's Dream all have their helmets off now, though there is no conversation among them.

Conrad and Tylen still watch over them.


Profit Margin moves smoothly away from the other ship, carried away by the force of their mutual spin.  Jockram responds to Jago's hail, "Right you are, Jago.  I've got this one's course plotted out, so we can come back later.  Going to vector three four niner, by one zero four.  Last one back to the snowball is a Droyne's granny."  The thrusters fire up, as Ore Hound spins on all three axes, and starts to accelerate back towards the tiny moonlet...


Shui leaves the pirate captain in the hold, for now, with his crew, while she goes to prepare cabin number eight for its duty as a holding cell.  The first thing she sees is Dhakhingzuel, seated in the passenger lounge.  The Vargr turns her head as Shui enters, and nods to the human woman, before standing, and baring her teeth.  The thrashing of her tail suggests that the seeming snarl may, in fact, be an attempt at a human-style smile.  Dhakhingzuel speaks, and her words seem to bear that idea out, "Thees good day.  Oezzarr's ghost can rest.  I hire/rent best ship.  If I hads more cred-dits, would give what Hoomaans calls bonus, all crew."
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 08:07, Mon 02 Apr 2007.

With Profit Margin moving away from the drifting hulk, Saskia relaxes, slumping down in her chair.  Jago is back at the controls now, so she pushes the external sensor readings to one side, setting them to warn her of any major change in the other ship's status, and switches the rest of the panel back to her default engineering layout.

The first thing she notices is that one of the thruster manifolds is running a little hot, so she gives the M-drive a hard stare, "Don't you even think about it."  The telltale drops back to green, a second or two later.  "Thank you."

She hits the comms, "Jago, everything's in the green back here.  Didn't break anything trying to stop that junker spinning.  She lets go of the switch, then hits it again, as she adds, "Don't do it too often though."

As they reach the cargo bay, Yas makes a point of counting the prisoners.

"...and four.  What, they are all alive still?  I mean, good!  Excellent!  Leaves more for me," she smirks and winks at Conrad and Tylen.  Then she turns to the captive captain, "You, join you sad crew!"

"Now, listen up, honoured guests!  You will all be assigned to a luxurious suite, inside which you will silently sit and wait without causing any further distress to either yourselves or us.  If you fail this I will personally take you for a space walk, unfortunately with you lacking a suit.  Is that clear?  Behave and we will all be happy.  Hmm, you will live and we will be happy, anyway," she states with a voice of a very militaristic tone, despite all the jesting, suggesting it is not jesting at all.  Louder than needed and with a glare to match the voice.

"I will give you an alternative to the space walk, though, since I have such a big heart.  We have aboard the relative of a Vargr that fell victim of these pirates you so pitifully attempted to work for, and she would be happy to find out more about human anatomy by dissecting a live specimen.  Are we all clear on this now?" she inquires with the same hard tone and then clearly attempts to kill each and every one of the prisoners by staring angrily at them, lifting her assault rifle to point just above their heads.

"ARE WE CLEAR?!?" she yells before they even had a chance to reply, looking about ready to personally dissect them there and then.

Inside she is chuckling, remembering her days in the Marines, first at the receiving end of this kind of talk and then barking at all the fresh recruits, making some of them nearly faint or wet themselves.  The good old days.

Shui bows.  "My thanks for your kind words, Dhakhingzuel."  She ponders the wisdom of bring out the truth, and decides there is no time like the present.  "However, be advised that these people are almost certainly not the pirates who killed Oezzarr - our work may not be complete.  Mr. Lanza-"  It's too hard keeping the Captains straight "-will have the details upon that, but I can say that it seems this ship was coerced into becoming pirates, and we are their first victim."

A small, ironic smile touches her lips for an instant.  "Worse luck for them."

As Yas gives her speech, Conrad, for one, is glad that he still has face hidden.  He knows she's just giving them a serious warning, while having some fun with them, and he would hate to give the game away.

So he stands up straighter while she talks, and keeps the dangerous end of his snub pistol where the prisoners can see it.

Behind the tinted faceplate though, he's grinning so wide that he'll probably have to speak to Shui later, about getting the top half of his head stuck back on.

“Thank you Saskia,” Jago mumbles around his cigar, “I’ll try not to make it a habit.”

Fingers flick across a complex series of switches with the rapid confidence that comes from long association. Jago locates the target, plots a fuel efficient vector, rotates the ship and begins a long, gentle burn that will bring the Profit Margin back to the moonlet where the ship lays buried in ice.

Frequently he checks the long range scanners, the real pirates might still be out there and he is determined not to be caught napping.

Tylen stands impassively faceless as Yas berates the captives. He's fairly sure now that they have told the truth, but Yasmine's warning can't hurt keeping them docile.

"These not kill Oezzarr mat-ter does not." Dhakhingzuel replies, tail still wagging, "They tell can where ones who kill Oezzarr hides.  Then thees ship, and other ship can find.  We have saying/prov-verb: Aengotz gvough ska'erokh djagh kzurrr."

"It means, in Hoomaans' words, Long-most jour-ney start with first step.  Thees might be all jour-ney, or only first step.  Mat-ter does not.  We closer find ones who kill Oezzarr than when start.  Thees is very much good."


In the hold, where Yas has finished her little "pep talk", the prisoners are all, perhaps unsurprisingly, in agreement with her.  Harper himself puts it to her, "Miss, you have no need to worry.  The battle knocked all the fight out of us.  Was almost a relief to get caught, for most of my crew."


Profit Margin's nain thrusters blaze, as they hurl the merchant ship through the void, out here in the cold, dark reaches of the system.  Ahead lays the icy moonlet, little more than a captured asteroid in a strictly temporary, and somewhat skewed, orbit.  Not that its temporary orbit is that temporary, on a human scale, but give it a couple of thousand years, and it'll drop into the bruised-looking cloud layers below, never to be seen again.

With any luck, Profit Margin will have moved on by then...

Tylen eased his gun, a tiny bit.

"Yas, can't we seal these tossers in somehow?"

He was eager to return to his quarters and remove the restrictive suit before Jago sent him to the Turret once more.

"Excellent!  Now when I say so, you will march through here and into the designated suite," Yas replies to the prisoners with the same militaristic attitude, not really caring that they are out of the bind they put themselves in after trying to attack a ship.  She is just glad it was Profit Margin and not a far less capable ship, suspecting both ships would have gone under in such a battle.

"Naturally, Trigger!  We will lock the door with a encoded security code.  We hardly want them to mingle with the passengers, do we?" she then tells Tylen with a grin.

"Now we wait for the go signal, and we all march over there happily and peacefully," she explains one more time and then settles down to wait for Sushi to let them know the lounge has been vacated.

Shui smiles with relief - she truly does not want the vargr disappointed, and not due to fear.  The woman has had a miserable time recently, with her family's tragic loss to pirates.  If this is good news to her, all the better.  "I am glad," she says, simply.  "But I must take leave - I am required to prepare their 'prison' for the duration of their stay aboard the Profit Margin."

And hopefully that stay will not be quickly terminated by a one-way trip out the airlock...into hard vaccuum.  Shui's mouth sets into a thin line as she marches for the room, faced with the daunting task of turning a cabin into a prison.

Well, perhaps not too daunting.

Alone in the cockpit, Jago opens a channel to the Ore Hound; a chanel that doesn’t involve broadcasting across the ships intercom.

It doesn't take long to convert the stateroom to a cell... a quick password lock on the computer terminal, set so that it requires Shui's personal code to unlock it, and only then from the terminal in her own quarters, and temporarily reset the door lock, so that it can only be operated from outside, again with the correct codes.

Fifteen minutes later, most of the room's removable contents are stacked in the rear lounge, leaving only the bed and two chairs, and plenty of floor to sleep on.

Yas, Tylen, and Conrad watch the crew of Harper's Dream as they cross the passenger lounge, under the scornful eyes of Dhakhingzuel, and the curious gaze of Corlan, who stands in the doorway of his own cabin.

Jago continues his tight beam conversation as the watches the little moon draw ever closer against the backdrop of stars.

Jago continues talking quietly with Jockram.


Profit Margin's passengers, willing and... less willing... settle into their accomodations.  Her crew are free to return to their usual stations once more, and to stow weapons and vaccsuits.

For now, there is no more crisis.