"What do you meed to know, Captain?" Harper asks, still looking totally defeated, as he stands, slump-shouldered, in front of Jago.  Yas' commentary on the exploration of the pirate vessel continues quietly in the background, and the erstwhile scourge of the space lanes looks even worse with each sentence.

"She's right you know.  We aren't pirates, not really.  Your's is the first ship we've attacked.  Looks like we made a really bad choice of target."

“What about the 'Big Deal' and 'Never Say Die', if you didn’t attack them, who did?”

“I want to know how long you’ve been out here, where you came from, and why you have a ship that’s been soldered together by an eight year old?”

Jago glares sternly at the other captain, though his eyes frequently flick back tom the readouts from the scanners.

Tylen activates his radio with his chin as he seals his visor.

"There's a pressure drop in here Yas, I'm sealing the suit up again for the moment."

He walks slowly round the compartment, videoing the damage for Sas.

Unnoticed, with both Captains concentrating upon one another, Shui slips out of the room again.  She quickly prepares a single cup of tea, puts the teapot on a tray, adds a cup of coffee, prepared to Jago's specifications.

Returning to the cabin, she places the tray and teapot well out of the other Captain's reach, over by the open doorway, then passes Jago his coffee.  Turning to Captain Harper, she hands him a single cup of slightly cooled tea, and silently offers a choice of lemon or milk.

"Understood," Yas replies. 

"The engineering section is not exactly in prime condition either.  We're continuing the search," she reports back to Profit Margin.

"We haven't attacked any other ships.  Ever." Harper assures Jago, accepting his tea, with lemon, from Shui with a grateful nod and a half smile.  "The ship's been in a mess for a while.  We've tried to hold her together as best we could, using salvaged parts and scrounged replacements.  She was falling apart around us, though, and we would never have passed the Bureau safety checks."

"We just weren't making enough cash to keep her operating, but losing her would cost more, since we had so much sunk into her from the back at the start.  We even  tried upgrading her, but the money was just disappearing quicker than air through a hull breach." he sighs, and takes a sip of the tea.

"Then we were hit, by pirates, though they'd call themselves a warship, I'd guess...  Swordies.  In exchabge for them not blowing us to dust, we signed on with them.  We weren't the first, either."

“Thanks Shui,” Jago says taking a sip of the scalding hot coffee, “do you think you could team up with Saskia and rig a couple of state rooms so they can’t be opened from inside, 7 and 8 preferably, and look in on Dhakhingzuel please, she might be upset if these aren’t her brother’s killers.”

“Did you get any of that Yasmin, we are looking for evidence either conforms Captain Harper’s story, or c0ntradicts it.”

“Jockram, we might be out here for a while yet if these aren’t the people we are looking for, are you OK with that?”

And finally, turning back to the other captain, Jago says, “so, tell me all about it, this ‘war ship’, when did they hit you, what exactly is the deal, specs of the ship, how you make contact, where we can find it, what you know of other ships they have recruited…. I think that will do for starters.”

"It was while we were at Choleosti.  A couple of weeks back.  The ship was one of those ugly traders that the Swordies use, Kauffahrer class, I believe, but it was armed to the teeth."

Harper shakes his head, "There wasn't a lot we could do, except surrender.  Then they offered us the deal.  They pulled us off the ship for two days, after we accepted, and when they let us back aboard, they told us that there's a bomb hidden aboard somewhere.  It will detonate if we don't report in at least once every six weeks to have it reset."

"They've given the same deal to another five ships... all small traders like yours or ours."

"Yas, I've been listening in.  I have a question for you." Saskia says, her voice flat, level, perfectly under control, perhaps even a little too perfectly.  Anybody in Engineering right now could hardly fail to notice her fingers drumming on the console.

"How bad is it, over there?  And how much of it is battle damage?"

Yas makes a face at Tylen and then replies to Sas.

"Hmm?  How bad it is?  Battle damage?  Oh, well, let's put it like this, the engineering section took the worst of the hit.  It's been modified too, but to what extent is a bit tricker to say, considering the damage done," she explains calmly, "forgetting" to mention that the damage is mostly cables and such pulled out of their sockets due to the shifting of the ship.  "Trigger is videoing it so you can review it later without risking coming over here, wouldn't want anyone stepping in the wrong place after the beating they took."

Tylen relaxed a little as he examined the epoxy patches. Whilst they weren't perfect, they would hold better once the copartment was repressurised.

"Oh, right, yeah, I copied, Skip...  I can buy that story, because with this ship it is suicidal to take on anything more than a scout-sized ship," Yas replies, remembering that Jago had asked her something as well after trying to think of something suitable to tell Saskia.

"We're moving on," she then reports back to Profit Margin.

Tylen moved again to the hatchway, his carbine up tight to his shoulder, the barrel sweeping the hallway, always pointing where he was looking. He moved in the direction of the hold. On reaching the door, he followed the same procedure and checked the tell-tale for signs of depressurisation or contamination.

Harper considers what he has just said, and then adds, "Might even be more ships by now."

Meanwhile, Yas and Tylen continue their exploration of the pirate vessel...
This message was last edited by the GM at 13:08, Sat 10 Mar 2007.

Tylen took a quick glance along the corridor to ensure there was nothing moving, then moved to examine the heavy door at the end of the lounge.

"Certainly Captain, though the crew of 'Harper's Dream' will have to wait until the hold is repressurized," she notes.  The Steward moves a few steps away from the two men, but still in the room, and activates the intercom in Dhakhingzuel's cabin with her dataglove link.

+ Pardon me, Dhakhingzuel; the Captain wishes to give you an update on the situation.  As it turns out, these particular pirates are not the ones for whom you have been searching.  The situation has become more complex than our earlier suppositions.  At the moment, the Captain is in discussion with his opposing number.  Is there anything you require by way of information?  I regret that at the moment, it is impossible for me to reach you physically. +

Yas looks around.

Tylen checks the readout beside the door before operating the controls.

The Vargr's voice is filled with barely repressed excitement as she answer's Shui's call, "Your Cap-tain, she is strong.  She have lead you here, to caught-siezed thees piraate ship, in great battle of glory, and even now, the Cap-tain grevdegd... ah... tortures the nagghountzurr'chok for infor-mat-ions about where those who killed Oezzarr are hiding!"

"Thees is good news!  I wait."

Tylen glances into the empty hold.

"Damn!"

He turns back to Yas,

"I was hoping they might have got something valuable on board we could salvage."

He glances back up the corridor.

"You want to pick a number?"

Jago studies the other captain, “tough break,” he says eventually, though there’s no sign of actual sympathy on his face.

“So, if you were caught at Choleosti, what are you doing here? What’s your procedure for reporting in? Is this sword ship here with you? tell me about that ship, weapons, crew, anything of interest?”

“If we land a real prize, just maybe, depending on how my partner feels, just maybe you’re off the hook. That ain’t a promise, you tried to blow us out of space and I don’t forget that, but it’s all you’ve got right now.”

"As I said, they told us they'd planted a bomb, and that we were to travel to other systems, raiding as we went.  But we have to be back at Choleosti in time for them to reset the timer on the bomb.  So every six weeks, we have to be back at Choleosti, to meet them and transfer anything we've taken to their ship.  Then they'd pay us, wind back the timer, and send us on our way again."

Harper falls silent for a moment, then suddenly bursts out, "Look, I'm not proud of this, but they didn't leave us a lot of choice."

Tylen moves to the desk and flicks through the clipboard. He taps the keyboard to see if the computer is live. He's looking for inventory or any reference to the Captains credit balance. He'd like to see the Profit Margin compensated for the munitions they expended, and if card cash is not available perhaps there are spare missiles that would top up his magazine.

Shui stares at the man with pity in her eyes; pity, and a faint tinge of disgust.  She struggles with that for a moment, then finally gives in, letting it come.  There are always choices.  This man chose poorly, opting to save his ship, trading the lives of others he might find, including theirs, in order to avoid losing a machine.  He could have put in somewhere.  Dumped the ship.  Done anything save commit acts of violence against innocents to save his own skin, and that of his ship.

He would have killed them, had his people been better shots than their own.  His crew had made the same choice, by not instigating a mutiny.

She keeps her silence, but it is an effort.

“You’re still not telling me the stuff I want to hear,” Jago says, annoyance filtering passed the unlit cigar in the corner of his mouth.

Jago hadn’t considered the morality of the man’s actions until he bought it up, now that he has Jago thinks he’s either lying or stupid, and as that applies to the whole crew, lying is edging out in front.

The Vargr’s response puts the smile back on his face though, “you know maybe I ought to let Dhakhingzuel ask the questions.”