"I'll be there in 'bout a minute." Conrad's voice comes in over the comm, loud and clear, "The blip's roughly ten klicks out, an' cruisin', nice'n'steady like.  Give it ten minutes, maybe a touch more.  Don't seem like they's in much hurry."

"Y'all okay down there, folks?  Ah... there y'all are."

The air-raft appears, swinging around the flank of one of the hills, further up the valley, and starts a gentle descent towards the battlefield.

As Conrad descends towards a smooth landing, the prisoners seem less than reluctant to hand over a number of assorted weapons.  The total haul, including the possessions of the two injured men, amounts to three revolvers, two autopistols, four knives of various sorts, and a rifle.

Hearing Tylen's yelled query, Hioilsal shows herself, though she stands behind the boulder so that she has at least partial cover, "If necessary, I can operate a vehicle with controls laid out in the Human fashion.  The Aikhahehtarl would normally insist on piloting the vehicle, but in this case, I suspect he would defer to me."

Profit Margin's air-raft touches comes to a halt, it's turbine still running, so that the grav units hold it about ten centimetres off the ground.  Conrad studies the prisoners, and his companions, noting who has injuries, and where.

Tylen looks down at the haul,

"Well you little darlings certainly came ready to dance now didn't you?"

He calls across to Conrad,

"Seeing as there's a local law 'bout not going heeled without a permit, mebbe you should see if you can raise the local law."

He grins menacingly at the prisoners,

"You see, I got a 'Get out of Jail free' card for mine, you boys got your paperwork handy?"

Tylen is fairly confident that the testimony of the Aslan will carry enough weight to convince the local law that he acted in self defence.

Once her first charge is stabilized, Shui hurries to the next - the man suffering from a myriad of pellet-wounds - and settles to her knees beside him.  "I will give you something for the pain, first."  Her hands move inside her black bag, setting up the proper injector module, which she then presses against the man's neck, injecting as close as possible to the central nervous system for fast action.  She doesn't have a lot of time, and knows it.

"Your hand."  Taking his wrist, she checks his pulse the old-fashioned way.

"I assume we will be taking our other prisoners back as well?  I realize our situation is not ideal, but leaving them here without weapons...."  Dangerous land, poor air, no food, no water, and a very long hike back to town.  It seems very likely that some would not arrive.

Yas considers Tylen's question carefully, before answering.  "Depends if you want mass murder on your conscience.  I don't think there's one of them man enough to survive out here without weapons and transport.  Not for more than a few minutes anyway."

The hum of the approaching raft tells her that Conrad is almost back.

"Conrad could take the Aslan home, while we have a little picnic with our new friends and get to know them better."

Saskia shakes her head, "No point calling in the law.  We have things to do, and they'll probably want us to wait here until they arrive and start their investigation.  Which will be whenever they can get here."

The engineer grins manically, "We'll save ourselves time and trouble if we just shoot these drannits in the mivonks and leave them here for the damnthings to chew on."

It is becoming clear that she is, perhaps, enjoying her role a bit too much.

Relief flowers in Shui at Yasmine's reply.  Something, at least, will be done to keep these poor fools alive.  But a trickle of concern runs through her, managing to worm its way into a crack in her focus as she works on the injured man, and Shui spares a quick glance and raised eyebrow for Saskia.

Always full of surprises, the engineer.  The crazed baring of her teeth holds remarkable verisimilitude...worrisome, that.

Shui works on the shotgun victim.

There is blood, and plenty of it, spread over a large area of his torso, but Shui's examination reveals that it is the result of numerous small, shallow wounds.  The man is wearing body armour, which certainly reduced the severity of his wounds, while not stopping all of them.

Enough got through to cause him considerable pain, and leave him temporarily stunned.

Unfortunately Profit Margin's medic doesn't really have time to clean them all, and most of the pellets will have to remain in place until he can obtain treatment somewhere else.  Shui opts for getting what she can out, and applying a spray dressing.

The other prisoners remain well behaved, beneath the watchful gaze of their captors.  Both Aslan come out of hiding, as does their Human guide.  The man had, it seems, taken cover much further away from the campfire than anybody else.  At least he has the decency to look suitably embarrassed as he walks back to stand with Hioilsal and the Aikhahehtarl.

Hioilsal addresses Shui's patient, "Who told you to find us?"

The man seems about to answer, but some move on the part of the medic turns his words into a hiss of agony.

Conrad speaks up from his position in the air-raft, where he is watching the radar, "Four minutes, folks, give or take.  Still not hurryin' any."

"I'm sorry, but please refrain from questioning my patient for the moment," Shui quietly - but firmly - requests of the Aslan.  "I'd rather have him not growing excited."  She continues to work; better to get the wounds sealed as much as possible immediately than sit around and wait for the painblocker to kick in.  It should - soon - but that's no reason to let the man sit and bleed.

Tylen smiles at the Aslan,

"Plenty of healthy ones here to question though."

He points the laser roughly at the foot of the man he threatened earlier.

"You know,"

He says, in a conversational manner,

"I was once told, back at the academy, that if you set a laser low enough you can cook the flesh off a mans limb without killing him. Something to do with the energy of the beam cauterising the blood vessels and stopping the victim from bleeding out. Sounds like hogwash to me, but there you go."

His face hardens,

"Why don't you do your injured pal a favour and tell Uncle Tylen who told you to come and find these people?"

Hioilsal blinks at Shui, then nods, "Apologies, Doctor."

Then she and the Aikhahehtar head slowly across to Tylen's group, where the former scout is doing his best to extract the information.  As they approach, Hioilsal says something to the Aikhahehtar, who answers in the same manner.

Hioilsal produces an odd *huffing* sound, which might be Aslan laughter (or might just mean that she has indigestion) before addressing Tylen, "If you can cook some of his flesh, the Aikhahehtar would like to eat it.  Or even if you can't he would still eat it.  A leg should be sufficient."

The prisoner looks at her, mouth open, as the colour drains from his face.  "He never gave his name, not while I was there, and he only ever contacted us through an audio link.  Even then, his voice was filtered."

"He first called a few days ago, offering payment if we would do a job for him.  Today he called again, and told us that the target would be in a suitably out-of-the-way place in the next few hours.  A bit later, another call told us where to find him."

The man looks at Tylen again, "You're not really going to let them eat me, are you?"

Tylen looks cooly at the frightened man,

"Well you'd have been quite happy if I'd stood by and let you kill them now wouldn't you partner."

He laughs suddenly,

"'Course I wouldn't let him eat you pal..."

His expression hardens and he leans closer,

"Not alive leastways!"

"Come on now!" Yas objects most sincerely.

A short pause where she sighs, shaking her head.

"Of course he has to be alive to eat anything."

She smiles as prettily as any predator that was ready to start eating already.

With the others continuing their interrogation, Shui feverishly works on her patient, fully understanding the urgency of the situation.  Her hands shuttle back and forth with smooth speed, never attempting to move more quickly than her mind can guide - a mistake will cost both the injured man and their time.

"I should finish perhaps two minutes before the aircar arrives," she calls out.  "If that."  No sense in giving an optomistic projection - if haste will be necessary, best they be prepared.

Hioilsal relays the man's words to the Aikhahehtar, who says nothing for a little while.  Then he gives a short speech in his deep, rumbling voice.

Hioilsal bows to him, and then speaks loud enough for all to hear, "The Aikhahehtar believes that he knows who is responsible for this.  There are a small number of individuals in our group who have... expressed disatisfaction with some of his decisions.  When we return to our ship, he will have them questioned.  He can think of nobody outside our party who would go to the trouble of arranging an attack such as this."

"Meanwhile, he suggests that we should - "

Whatever the Aikhahehtar suggests is put aside for the moments as a delicate musical chime sounds from somewhere.  Hioilsal removes a small device from a pocket on the cuff of her sleeve.  Peering at it for a moment, she raises it to her lips and speaks into it, in Aslan.  A voice answers her, probably in the same language, though it is somewhat distorted.

Finally she puts the device back into the sleeve pocket, as the male Aslan gives a satisfied-sounding growl.

"The Aikhahehtar was going to suggest a way to deal with the current situation.  However, the vehicle which is now approaching is, apparently, the one we were expecting to come and collect us.  It will arrive shortly."

]

Tylen relaxes, slightly.

"Well that sorts out how we get you folks back on the road, but we still have to decide what to do with these troublemakers."

He prods the nearest man with the barrel of his carbine,

"Anyone have any suggestions?"

He winks at Yas,

"Other than just shooting them of course."

"Shooting?" the ex marine states with surprise.  "Why waste ammo when I got a machete?  There is at least a dozen ways to do it quickly, many times that to make it slow, but it saves on ammo."

She put on a grin that would have made the Grim Reaper green of envy.

"Either that or we leave them here tied up.  And if we feel like it, once we are back at what passes for civilization around here, let slip to the authorities that someone might still be alive out here."

Knowing full well the scout and marine are playing their parts, Shui keeps her silence, continuing to work on the badly injured man.  Almost complete, now - soon, he should be ready for transport back to a hospital.

She's rather certain his associates would prefer to put a bullet in the heads of the injured and leave them here than drop them at any medical care facility - slug and laser wounds tend to be reported, which brings police to the injured and a trail back to those remaining whole and hale.  Hence, she has every intention of dragging both wounded men to the hospital herself.

Saskia has been listening to the discussion between Yas and Tylen, while keeping an eye on the man she has been trying to scare into changing his ways.  An idea has been taking shape, and now she sees her chance to voice it.

"Their vehicles." she says, quietly.  Then, with a little more conviction, "I could disable their air-raft, and the grav bike.  Stripping out the power node couplers would take me maybe three minutes, but it would take them ten minutes, maybe fifteen, tops, to put them back in, because they'd have to fiddle about getting them aligned right.  It's the same on all those LSP models.  For those ten or fifteen minutes, they'd be going nowhere."

A second idea occurs to her then, "And we could take all their ammo, so they're effectively disarmed.  Leave them the guns, so that if one of those damnthings comes by, they can at least pistolwhip it a little."

She smiles, pleased with her thinking, "What do you think?"

Tylen scratched his jaw with his left hand, careful to keep the Laser pointing where it did the most good.

"Well I guess the Doc's right, we should see to it that the two wounded get proper care, but we also have to make sure we complete our own contract. If we call the local authorities I guess we'll be futher delayed. Only solution is that we split up. Yas and Conran can finish the drop, the Doc and Sask can deliver the wounded and I can wait here for the Law with these Cuties."

He aimed a leer at the nearest prisoner,

"We'd be right cosy now wouldn't we sweetheart?"

"Sounds good to me, if not too fun," Yas says with a shrug.  "Can't we just cut them a little?"

Conrad starts thinking about the options, then, "Well now.  Seems to me that Sassy might have a good idea there.  Think about it.  The Aslan go home in their car.  By the time the hired guns can get theirs fixed, an' head back to town, the Aslan have had time to call the law and let 'em know what's gone on out here,  Which makes it a mite tricky for these boys to tell their version o' things."

"Now, I'm bettin' that they'll know a doc or two who'll treat gunshots without contactin' the police, so the wounded get treated with nobody havin' to worry none 'bout all them annoyin' forms an' questions.  Now, it's most likely that it'll cost 'em a bit, but that might make 'em think twice 'bout takin' jobs like this in future."

"Meanwhile, we all get to enjoy our drive in the country, an' make that delivery, jus' like we arranged."

Tylen nods towards the Aslan interpreter,

"Perhaps we'd best hear the Aikhahehtar's suggestion anyway ma'am, I would consider it wise to hear the suggestion of the honoured Gentleman before we make our decision."

Tylen is not fully conversant with what is polite in Aslan society, but he's fairly sure the Aikhahehtar did not achieve his position without some skill in creating subtle solutions.

"A diplomatic solution to our dilemma might be just what we need."

He inclines his head respectfully, in lieu of a more formal bow which would be unwise in his current situation.

"The Aikhahehtar's suggestion is no longer applicable." Hioilsal says.  Then she decides to explain it anyway, "He was going to suggest that we leave these criminals here, with their weapons emptied of ammunition and their small vehicle disabled.  While you went on your own way, we could take their other vehicle to a safe altitude and scatter their ammunition from there, before driving back to the port.  That way, by the time they had found the ammunition and reloaded, we would be out of range.  But we would not be leaving them here without the means to protect themselves and obtain food."

"Upon our return to our ship, we would tell the local authorities where to find them.  Since they came here to commit an act which is undoubtedly illegal, forcing us to seek protection, protocol requires that we report their activities."

She pauses then, briefly, pointing down the valley, "However, with our own vehicle approaching, it is no longer necessary to borrow theirs."

And there is a vehicle there, coming in low, just three or four metres above the ground...

Leaning back from her patient, Shui keys her dataglove on, activating the radio link to the other members of the team.  + I would only put one amendment to Ms. Blake's otherwise excellent plan - I need to bring the wounded into town.  If they so desire, they can direct me to a place where they might garner...under the table assistance.  I have no issue with that.  But I do not trust their associates to do right by them - their ethics are somewhat lacking. +

She taps her lip thoughtfully.  + We can still follow the suggestion of splitting up, + she finishes hesitantly, not liking the idea of leaving any member of the group in a potentially dangerous situation without a medic.