Still in orbit, and out of reach of the less friendly elements on the planet's surface, the two ships have a peaceful night.

In their own lounge the passengers seem to have gotten over the excitement of the (highly ineffectual) attack on the ship, and are now more worried obout the upcoming dinner with the crew of Ore Hound.  Except Eneris, who seems singularly unperturbed, and is declaring to anybody who even looks as if they might listen that he'll probably just shut himself in his quarters with a sandwich and a holovid.

Keryn, in between wondering what to wear for a dinner with what she seems to consider "visiting dignitaries" (which would probably be highly amusing to Jockram), does her best to cajole Eneris into changing his mind.

For the crew, there is the dinner to worry about, of course.  And the little matter of a landing to drop off the much-wanted cargo (and an unwanted passenger).

Three trading companies have responded to Jago's offer.  They are Rangent Trade Factors, Rangent Import and Export, and Davis Trading, and all had agreed to meet his asking price.  Further discussion reveals that only Davis Trading insists on the cargo being offloaded at that particular city dome, the other two companies having branches elsewhere on the planet.  The rep from RIE suggested that if Profit Margin were to drop the cargoes at widely spread locations, it would make it harder for the thugs to coordinate any sort of action against the ship. 

Additionally, Jago had managed to make contact with a group calling itself The Fellowship of the Golden triumvirate.  They seem to be a church of some description, and are considered by the reps from all three trade companies to be trustworthy.  They have declared their interest in the fourth consignment, and explained that they run several small hospitals across the planet, and would use the Loxibac to treat patients, free of charge.

Now it's just a matter of getting everything done and making it back into orbit in one piece...

(NPCd)

"Attention, all crew." Jago sits on the bridge with the ship's internal comms active, "Three minutes until we start our descent.  Three minutes from... now."  Then he switches over to Jockram, "Preparing to drop down to offload cargo now, Jockram."

"Roger, Jago.  I have a small convoy, four vehicles, on the ice down there.  At closest approach they'll be about ninety klicks from you. You got them?"  A reticle appears on the bridge monitors, a direct feed from Ore Hound, tagging the convoy.  Four vehicles each with a larger trailer, cargo transports by the looks of them.  "If they show any sign of suddenly turning towards you, we're all set to make... discouraging suggestions."

Alongside Profit Margin, Ore Hound now hangs inverted in relation to the planet, her turret, with its mining laser, turned towards the surface.

"Apart from those, I have a dozen other vehicles scattered all over this hemisphere.  Nothing else that looks like it could be carrying anything big enough to scratch your hull though."

Ash listens in on the report from the Ore Hound.  He pushes their telemetry feed onto a topographical overlay of the planets surface centered on the landing site.  "We read your feed loud and clear, Ore Hound." he responds dutifully to the relayed information.  "Thank you." the Profit Margin's navigator adds as a slight afterthought.

He sits in the co-pilot's seat and watches the timer and projected navigation track overlay which are also on the main screen as well as his own console.  Ash keeps the Margin's own proximity sensor sweeps and diagnostics cycling in the background of his console, trusting in any alarms to alert him, if anything seems astray.

Ash cinches his five point harness a touch tighter in anticipation of reentry.  He feels the prickles on the back of his neck that always accompanies him when a journey starts.  He finds himself looking forawrd to the slight pull of the inertial compensators as they accelerate (or decelerate, as the case may be) to speed.  "Showing green on all systems, Captain." the thin ex-Scout lets Jago and the rest of the crew on the common crew channel know, "The Margin is ready when you are.  All hands prepare for reentry."

After ensuring the various passengers are safely stowed away in small boxes their quarters, Shui prepares herself for the descent in the lounge.  She has her black bag with her, just in case, but for now it seems her duty will be to ensure everyone has a decent lunch when they return from the transaction.

"All systems powered up.  You're clear to take us down when you're ready."

Saskia is, just for once, at the engineering repeater station on the Bridge, directly behind Jago's position.  From there she can hear everything that's going on between pilot, navigator and gunners, even if the comms are completely frelled.

(NPCd)

Jago continues giving instructions to the crew as he tilts the nose of the ship down towards the planet's surface.

"We have four consignments to drop off, at four different locations on the surface.  Four different ports, which I don't expect to be any more advanced than the last one.  The customers will be waiting at each drop off point, and have arranged their own security for when they leave."

Tylen will man the belly turret, and Yas will drop the cargo on the surface and get signatures for them.  I plan on touching down for the minimum possible time at each spot.  Ash, I want you to watch sensors and stay in contact with Ore Hound.  Saskia, keep everything running smooth in case of trouble."

A pause as the ship starts its descent.

"After we've dropped off the cargo, we'll be landing a fifth time to offload Othati-Fenn.  Shui, start defrosting him when you're ready, but take it slow.  I don't want him awake until after the fourth load of cargo is off the ship, and Yas is free to keep an eye on him."

"When have you ever needed to tell me that?  What sort of frelling engineer do you think I am?" Saskia responds, not taking her eyes off the panel.  Everything is looking good, with no sign that there might be any problems lining up.

There is one nagging little concern though.

"Jago?  When were you thinking of dropping our little gift for the bullies?  Only it's all set up, with the safety systems turned off and everything, but you didn't mention it."

"Sure thing, Boss." Tylen grins as he starts making his way to the belly turret.

"I'll have your arse covered." he says flicking the switch that will put him though to Yas's communicator "Although I expect it will be quiet enough."  with that he settles into his seat and starts arming systems and checking on the gunnery sensors.

The ship descends at a steep angle, and Jago questions Ash about their course.  "Can you plot me the best route between these six points on the surface, Ash?  Just make this one the fifth stop, and this one the sixth, and the rest you can take in any order that means we can hit all five of them in the shortest possible time."

Saskia's question brings a chuckle, "I haven't forgotten.  That's going to be the sixth and final stop.  Sort of a parting gift after we've done everything else.  Insult to injury, and all that."

On the passenger side, everybody is in the lounge, watching the planet's surface sliding across the wall displays.  There seems to be some sort of competition to be the first to spot an artificial structure down rhere.  From this altitude, none are visible yet...

"Of course, Captain." the Profit Margin's navigator responded dutifully to the request for an optimal routing solution.

Almost immediately, the six designated destinations were highlighted and the set of alternate routes were being calculated.  Given his fairly extensive experience he had eyeballed a reasonable first iteration to place into the calculations as a starting point.  Using that and the rather massive computing power of the core, Ash had already gone through a couple hundred iterations in the first few seconds.  The highlighted route rippled a couple of times, but eventually stabilized.

And once that happened, Ash kicked off the secondary calculations and displays which tracked the position of the Margin and posted live-updating estimates of ETAs and streamed them for all six positions in various colours.

Ash overlaid the Ore Hound's trajectory as well as both sets of sensor feeds and public telemetry onto the same main tactical display.  While, busy and in some ways quite imposing with the proper colour coding and transparency settings the HUD was almost entrancing as the various data streams of numbers and the myriad other color points and lines continued to move and dance.

"Done, Boss." the thin ex-Scout noted to his pilot.

He prompted Jago, "Are we going in silent?  Or is there a specific comm channel frequency that you want me to monitor and broadcast over as we come into each site?"

Jago grins, "I hadn't thought about going in silent.  I was planning on letting Jockram know as we made each drop, just a squirt transmission to keep him apprised, but not announcing our next destination.  Though, to be honest, from the look of your course plot we'll be moving pretty fast most of the time, so I don't think we'll be in any danger.  If they couldn't hit us when we were pretty much standing still, I don't think they stand much chance when we're moving at about 700 kph."

"Here we go."

The Captain's hands dance across the controls and the ship angles into a near vertical dive, pirouetting to line up for the exit vector.  "You know, we should do this more often.  It's quite enjoyable."

In his turret, Tylen's  fingers drum lightly, and sub-conciously, against the arm of  his seat as he concentrates on the sensors that would warn of a potential attack.

Yas sits in her turret tinkering with the computer displays and the info displayed thereon.  As they dive she grins, a small and inferior reminder to all the drops she have made.  Some feared it, having no control over going down, but Yas figured if something went wrong she could not do much about it either way, so why worry about it.  She quite enjoyed drops, even the rough ones.  It sort of affirmed that she was still alive as opposed to making her think she was about to die.

"Hey boss, once we're done delivering, how about blowing some dust and ice off their dome before we, ahem, repaint it?  Adhesion and all that," she calls out through to open door to where Jago and Ash sits.  "See how close you can get, eh?"

It was good to see Jago having fun.

"Aye, aye, Captain." the navigator notes dutifully as the Profit Margin begins her run.  Ash busies himself with informing Jockram and the Ore Hound they'll be using and then sending a short test broadcast to make sure that everything appears to be working.  Given his general familiarity with communications protocols, he tries to choose one that he suspects that the general populace of Rangent have likely never heard of, let alone have the technology to crack very easily.  In this case, he opts for a type of 'security by obscurity' - given that the most things might be pretty obscure given the state (or non-state) of their communications network on the planet...

Of course, for the tight beam to work efficiently and reliably, he knows that the Ore Hound will need to be able to accurately track the Margin.  So, Ash quickly pushes their flight plan over the comm link so that Jockram and his boys has a heads-up on what to expect.

Given the speeds that they will be using, Ash makes sure that the sensor telemetry is accurate and that one of the main displays has the proper overlay for the required accuracy.  He tries to not make things too distracting, as he knows that Jago sometimes likes to have a more visceral feel to his flying...

"I'm sure I can manage a nice fast flyby of their dome, just to eyeball the target area, Yas.  Time to get ready for your first stroll." Jago announces.

Jockram responds to Ash's call, "Got that, Ash.  And I'm all set up to hand our telemetry over to you as well, so you should be able to see everything you need."

Tylen's gunnery panel is handily marking all the potential targets, and tagging them with identification codes, velocity and vector tags, projected routes, estimated missile flight times.  All of the moving ones seem to be ground vehicles, and none of them look as if they will be anywhere near the ship's intended course.

At her console, Saskia confirms again that, yes, she knows the sewage tank safety alarms are switched off and that, no, she doesn't want them turned on just yet...

In the low berth chamber, Shui uses her dataglove to review the flight plan, particularly the ETA for dropping her frozen passenger off.  She sets the berth to start thawing.  It looks as though Jago might have to wait a couple of minutes - they will be in position to kick Othati-Fenn off the ship approximately 100 seconds before the berth will open.

All assuming nothing goes wrong...

"Understood," Yas says and taps her info displays for forwarding.  A moment later she gets up to get into her finest threads.  If only she could accessory properly with a more suitable gun.  A Gatling or something would dot the i nicely, add a bit of oomph to the getup, as it were.

Making her way into the cargo bay and the suit she double and triple checks everything, including her guns.  Would not do to have something mess up.  The displays are receiving her forward data so that she can stay up to date on any development, unlikely as it is.  Better to be prepared for trouble and not see any than the other way around.

"Ready when you are," she reports to Jago over the comms.

Shui checks her dataglove again and sighs.  It wouldn't be her choice to remove their passenger at this location, not with what she has learned of it, but...it isn't her choice, is it?  Othati-Fenn dug deeply to put himself in this situation; it doesn't salve her conscience, but not really, but the thought might allow her to set her sadness aside at marooning him here.  With his attitude, Shui doesn't suspect he'll do terribly well.

Either that, or he'll fall in with the wrong crowd and do extremely well...in a bad way.

Security is all caught up in doing their thing; she'll requisition some assistance with their passenger once they hit groundside.  It'll probably take them a good five minutes to get all the cargo off the ship anyway, so Othati-Fenn will have some opportunity to pull himself together.

With that thought...

++ Captain Lanza, I am prepared to release Othati-Fenn after we arrive.  I do assume, however, that if things go poorly we won't simply be dropping him into a war zone? ++

“Of course not Shui, we’ll play it by ear if the situation isn’t favourable, and drop him near another hab somewhere. Incidentally, if you go into my cabin you’ll find I’ve left some warm clothing out for him on the bed perhaps you could put some ration bars in one of the pockets for him.”

Shui smiles, heading out of the coldsleep room.  The berth is on automatic right now, so it's still safe. ++ Of course, Captain Lanza.  I should have expected as much. ++  One eyebrow cocks.  ++ One hopes I won't be scandalized by the condition of your quarters. ++

Tylen sits in the turret, listening to the chatter, but watching his sensors.  Idly he flicks a switch here, turns a knob  there  as he fine tunes his sensors.  While he doesn't expect anything to kick-off, he wants to be prepared if it does.

Ash thanked Jockram and then noted, "Ready to receive, Ore Hound."  And as the coordinates streamed in, the Profit Margin's navigator cross-referenced the flight plans and highlighted them on the main tactical display overlays.

Then he double-checked the internal sensor feeds, making sure that he could keep an eye on cargo bay and ramp.  And that the Security Chief would not been out of visual range at any given time, if he could help it.

Ash checked the ramp status and noted dutifully over the common crew channel, but to Jago and Yasmine in particular, "Ramp status is green.  All systems appear to be a 'go'."

The ship comes in hot, Jago clearly enjoying the chance to flex his piloting muscles.  The ramp seal breaks at the same time as the gear starts to extend, still a hundred metres off the deck, and an ice-cold wind whips flurries of snow into the cargo bay, causing Shui to hurry the last few steps to the lounge door.

Yas, safely cocooned in her armour, adjusts the thermostat slightly, because the interior of the suit is a little on the warm side, and does her best to ignore the screech of the ramp...

"Three." Jago tells her, indicating which consignment should be dropped here.  Things would have been less complex had they been able to make the deliveries in numerical order, but that would have made for a less efficient route.

Tylen spots their landing area on the turret display, and notes that this place, Vincent Landing, looks identical to Davis - similar battered dome, similar flattened patch of ice with no facilities... the biggest difference is the crawler parked on the ice near where  they intend to touch down. 

Gear locked and ramp extended, the ship touches down with scarcely a bump.

"Ash, is Jago making himself look good for the locals?  We're showing you as down, close to a parked crawler.  Nothing else anywhere nearby." Jockram reports from his orbital vantage point.

"Wait right there, please!  I will come out to you."

Yas does not want anyone close enough to throw anything into the cargo bay and keeps a sharp lookout for anything resembling one of those primitive launchers.  She would have preferred to have landed further away and to be at the spot first, but this would have to do.  Her ACR at ready she scans the area for trouble, even if her focus is on the crawler.

"Hope you got them lined up in case they try something.  Better safe than sorry," she reports on the line to Tylen, fully expecting him to indeed be on top of things.  She checks the HUD in the suit to get the latest feeds.