The inner door on the airlock pops open, and Jockram steps into the interior of Profit Margin to be greeted by her crew.  He's clad in a vaccsuit which is adorned with a picture of sunset in a binary star system.  In one gloved hand he carries a metal case, which he hands to Jago, then breaks the seal on his helmet and starts to remove the suit.  "Good evening everybody.  Banster and Hegerich are outside, waiting for me to tell them it's not an ambush.  If you like I can just not call them... we can leave them out there and dinner'll be about a hundred times more civilised."

The case proves to be unlocked, with a padded and insulated interior which holds two bottles of wine, and one of Halkan brandy.  "I don't know much about wine, but I've been told that those are reasonable, and the brandy's from my own personal stock."

The prospector finally manages to remove his colourful suit, to reveal a dark blue jumpsuit beneath.

Jago grins as he casts his eye over the labels on the bottles, “they’ll be excellent,” he assures the other captain, though the statement is based on supposition rather than knowledge, “we better let the others in though, not much point in an ambush without them.”

As the airlock recycles Jago indicates the way through to the crew lounge, “go on through,” he says with a smile, “unless you’d like to look round the bridge, that’s through here.”

OOC
Assuming that they are entering through the new forward airlock.

Jockram steps into the crew lounge, and looks about while he waits for his own crew to come aboard.  "I need to get a ship like this." he calls back to the welcoming committee near the airlock, "More spacious than the Hound.  And cleaner."  He reaches his arms wide, "I could have a good stretch in here without worrying about accidentally purging the atmosphere or disengaging the reactor safety interlocks."

The airlock starts to cycle again, and finally opens to reveal two figures crammed inside.  Banster's suit has some sort of vegetation, with a tall straight stem and a cluster of long drooping fronds at the top, standing on a beach alongside a blue ocean beneath an improbably picturesque sky.  Hegerich's features brightly coloured birds, flying in spirals which loop around the suit from his feet up to the neck seal.

Each raises a hand in greeting, then starts to remove his helmet.  As soon as the suits are unsealed, they both start to talk...

"Hello everybody."

"Jockram ain't finished all the brandy yet, has he?"

Ash had been doing his best wallflower impression, waiting at the back of the room while the assembled crew welcomed their Ore Hound counterparts.  He still had to admit that he felt slightly like an outsider as the newest (bar Eneris, of sorts) crew member.  It wasn't anything that the others on the Profit Margin, far from it.  The lanky navigator knew that it was his own hang-up.  The others just knew each other so much more intimately; it just took time to establish that type of camaraderie.

As Jockram pushed into the room to clear the area around the airlock, Ash eased his way over to the grizzled miner.  "Captaim," he greeted him and more formally introduced himself with his hand outstretched, "Ash Tescali, I am pleased to put a live face with the voice."  The comm link may have had grainy video capability, but nothing beat an in person meeting.

The ex-scout gives Banster and Hegerich a casual salute as they enter the ship proper.  He offers to help with their suits, but doesn't press them if they prefer to disrobe on their own.

Once the two boys have shed their suits, he also introduces himself to them as well, since he's never met them formally either.  He doesn't answer Hegerich's question merely shrugging and then gesturing to the lounge where there is more room for everyone to spread out.

"Gentlemen," Shui states, offerning a small bow.  She's dressed in one of her 'shore leave' outfits: a sleeveless black shirt, pale knee-length skirt, and a short black jacket.  "Our thanks, both for your presence and your gifts."  She breathes a small sigh of relief at the sight of the wine and brandy; it's something she's going to have to put in stock next time they're in a decent port, for circumstances such as this.

Thank goodness she can at least present a good table foodwise.

"I'm sure Ms. Blake would be pleased to discuss the ship's specifications with you," she informs the Ore Hound's captain.  "In the meantime, if you like I can pour you something to drink - from your stock, or a fruit juice if you'd rather spare it for the dinner."  She cocks her head to the side slightly, smiling.  "We also have coffee and various different teas."

”Or we have got beer.” Tylen says opening a bottle of the dark beer for himself.  The ex scout is back in his everyday clothes now.  After a quick trip through the fresher, it was natural to put the cargo pants and tee-shirt back on.  After all, these were friends coming to dinner, not guests who needed any special looking after.

His eyes linger on Shui for a moment, and he wonders perhaps if he should have dressed a bit more, but then decided its way too late now anyway.  ”Anything you want me to do, Shui?” he asks the stewardess, half expecting her to have everything well and truly organised by now.
This message was last edited by the player at 21:11, Sun 26 Jan 2014.

With everybody out of their vaccsuits and introduced, the two crews make their way over to the passenger lounge, where the rest of Profit Margin's "family" await them.  And in all the excitement, nobody seems to notice that the ship's Chief of Security was absent from the welcoming committee...

The passenger lounge is larger than the crew one, and considerable effort has gone into converting it into a suitable venue for a dinner party.

Extra chairs have been brought in from the empty cabins, and the wall displays have been set to show a slowly cycling sequence of scenic views from the popular, "Natural Wonders of the Third Imperium.  Corlan and Eneris had spent several hours selecting the particular views, and had avoided the shots of binary stars, nebulae, and other stellar phenomena, reasoning that the crew of a prospecting ship probably sees quite enough space as part of their regular routine.

Instead they have chosen views of purely planetary scenery.

Corlan is dressed in his best shipsuit, while Eneris is in his full Naval uniform, complete with medals. 

Keryn has managed to put together an outfit - a flowing, ankle length synthsilk dress, in gunmetal grey, and a few items borrowed from Saskia, Shui and Yas.

Introductions are made, for those who have not met, and people start to drift towards their seats...

Saskia wasn't planning to spend a lot of time on getting ready.  A quick shower and the best "off duty" clothes she could find that weren't too badly wrinkled from being stuffed into the closet.  She briefly considers putting her boots on, and decides she'll be more comfortable without.  Then reaches a compromise.

Finally she stands before the mirror in a black jumpsuit with tan sleeves, and a pair of socks.  "Perfect" the engineer murmurs, before adding a translucent dark green scarf, and immediately removing it and shoving it back under her bunk.

Five hours later she leaves her cabin in a pair of calf length black trousers, a light purple shirt (the words "Frankly, I couldn't give a frell" over her heart tastefully concealed by the black vest that she had decided to wear at the last moment).  The dark green translucent scarf and a pair of black socks complete her outfit.

The arrival of visitors on the crew side makes her nervous, so she stands well back and lets Yas distract all the attention from her.  It's all going perfectly until she realises that Yas isn't doing her job properly.  At all, in fact.  She isn't even there.  A brief pang of regret that she hadn't thought of a way out of this herself (an urgent coolant pump diagnostic, or something) and then it's over to the passenger lounge.

Keryn looks nice, hardly surprising, since Saskia had lent the passenger the best of her small collection of jewelry, and quite deliberately too.  Eneris has scrubbed up nicely, and has enough metalwork hanging on his chest to armor a strike cruiser.  Corlan is as well-groomed as ever.  But there's still no sign of Yas.  The empty chair just emphasises that one of Saskia's decoys is missing.  She might end up having to engage in polite conversation and social interaction.

Oh dren!

Those who know Jago might notice the clean shirt under his bomber jacket, they might notice that the aforesaid jacket and his boots have had a wipe down with a damp cloth that he’s recently shaved and missing an unlit cigar, but otherwise he looks much the same as usual as he takes the seat at the head of the table.

“Place looks nice,” he says with a smile to the long term passengers, “you’ve done us proud, thanks.”

For a moment the Captain considers asking Shui if she has everything ready but such a questions would be foolishly redundant, instead he asks, “can we give Yasmin a few minutes before we start , I don’t know what’s keeping here but I’m sure she’ll be along shortly.

Does everyone have drinks? ”

Aside, he ask quietly, “Ash, do you have a link with the bridge? We need to keep a weather eye open.”