It's like those scenes in bad suspense flicks, where everyone is huddled waiting, tense music playing in the background.  Any moment now, something's going to happen.

Any moment now.

Any.

Moment.

Now.

Is it just me or is this taking a long time?

The lift begins its descent.  Your company is coming.

Tepha gets the first contact.  She's able to get a sensor bounce off the incoming ship, giving you all a scan of it.

It's a custom job.  Silver and Ledo both recognize it as classic pirate outfitting.  This one likes missles.  There's at least four bays for them, as well as a couple of some nasty turrent placements.

There are two seperate gangplanks, one fore and aft.  Rig realizes his bomb placement should pin the aft hold.  Looks like it will also close off their airlock.  So any disembarking they will want to do will have to come out the fore gangplank.

Tepha picks up a signal.  Whoever this is is trying to signal someone.

"...you copy?  Siri?  Do you copy?  Shit.  This place is jammed up tight."

"Got a ping Sir.  Looks like we're goin' to a hangar.  Maybe two ship?"

"Shit!  Take us off open air you moron!  If anyone's down there, they'll hear us!"

The signal cuts off soon after.

The lift has descended far enough now that there is a visual.  The incoming ship looks like a old pleasure yacht that's been tricked out.  As previously noted, most of the tricking was done for the purpose of hurting.

The ship is named Burn Em All.  Fritz runs a quick search.  Not registered but a known pirate on the navy bands.  Suspected crew twelve members strong. Captain unknown.  Siri's name is listed as a potential crew member.

Burn Em All suddenly turns on its flood lights, burning them at full.  Seems they're trying the old 'shine a flashlight in your face' trick.

I'll let Ledo signal for the bomb blow.  The Burn Em All will be set in place by the end of your next series of posts.  Baring results of the explosion of course.

Ledo cursed. Of course it was a pirate ship. Of course it was a group of bloodthirsty desperados. Of...fucking...course.

Time to see if he can't talk some sense into them.

"Burn Em All, this is Tiamat's Flight. Hold fire. Repeat Hold fire. The hangar is booby trapped. This whole fucking asteroid is booby trapped..."

Taking himself off of general he sent a message directly to Fritz.

"Fritz, I know you took image captures of what you saw. Send them some a few pictures of the massacre in the strip club."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 2):

Fritz sends over a few choice snapshots.

The lift comes to a full stop.  Burn Em All is quiet.

Then they squawk.

"Well why don't we talk about it?"

The fore gangplank on their ship lowers.  No one comes out.

Obviously they want someone to come in.

<<Internal>>
"Rig, lower the ramp and prepare to pretend to be me. When I say hi just give them a wave."

<<to the Burn Em All>>
"The fact that we're talking here means I wasn't born yesterday, Burn Em. I know your reputation. If you want to have a face to face, you can come down to the ramp and we can have a chat  out in the open."

<<Internal>>
"Rig, do it."

Through his scope Ledo sees the ramp lower and a suited up Rig gives a half hearted wave. Not an oscar performance by any stretch but it was a visual aide.

<<to the Burn Em All>>
"So to bring you up to speed, we've been attacked by security drones, forklifts with starship weaponry jury rigged onto them, and explosives. Good god the explosives. We already lost one crewman, Fritz Jr, and nearly lost two others figuring out what's what, and you know what we found? Nothing. Not a goddam thing. At least so far."

<<Internal>>
"Fritz, keep sending them snapshots. The drone attacks, the forklift thing, footage from Rig's suit showing the dead bodies, empty storage rooms. Don't show them the ceiling trap though or how to get through the first trap safely."

<<to the Burn Em All>>
"So we get to the bottom of this fucking fun house and you know what's there? A bomb. Set to blow up the entire facility. It's a fucking riddle where if you get it wrong it explodes a fault line that destroys this whole thing. Hangar, lounge, everything. All we got was about five hundred credits in change from all these dead bodies.

And now we're trapped here. Can't access the lift to escape and frankly we don't even have enough fuel to make it anywhere thanks to the hangar booby traps.

So here is what I'm proposing. You put together a small group of your best and brightest and we'll do the same. Together we can try and solve this fucking riddle so we both have a chance to get out of here. We can go back to backstabbing and double crossing later but first we've got to disable Cles' psycho freak show. Shooting the shit out of one another now is only going to make us end up like this."

<<Internal>>
"Alright Fritz, hit 'em with images of the burnt out wreck and the dead guy in the space suit Rig found."

<<to Burn Em All>>
"Send out who you want to send out and we'll do the same. Together we can figure just how we're going to get off this hellhole."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 4):

There's another long silence and then they squawk again.

Alright

A laser, the non-cuts-you-in-half kind, beams out from the Burn Em All and indicates a spot on the hangar floor halfway between both ships.

But we want to talk to the guy who's hiding up in the rafters there.  The one probably acting as a sniper.  We can hack into comm lines too ya know.

A woman in a jumper comes down the ramp they've extended and moves to stand beside the laser indicates.

<<Internal>>

"Well shit. Fritz, did you do the thing?"

OOC Assuming Fritz gives the affirmative...

<<External>>

"Roger that. Coming down."

Ledo packed up his rifle and slowly began to descend. He shouldered his rifle and hopped on over to the laser.

"So here's the deal. This place is rigged up with enough explosives to make everyone's lives miserable because someone raped and killed his favorite stripper. This whole asteroid is a fucking trap. No gold, no loot. Just dead bodies, creepy messages and explosives. Right now you and I and everyone are trapped here. We found a couple survivors from that burnt out wreck. Dead when their suits finally ran out of juice.

And you and I are in a bit of an impasse. Even if we decided to start shooting one another what's the gameplan? We can't shoot you without destroying the lift. You can't shoot us without triggering explosives and setting the hangar on fire. Run a scan, you can see this whole place is covered in fuel where the fucking attack drones ruptured our tank. Hell we don't have enough fuel to make it back anywhere anyway.

So here's what I'm proposing. You and yours can sit back in your ship with popcorn and watch the show while we try and get past this mine and get us all out of here. We'll stream you the video so you can help out from a safe distance. If we get control of the station we can send you back up the lift and you're up and on your way.

Sound good?"

Ledo was crossing his fingers this wouldn't turn stupid. He wasn't lying and they had a couple more aces up their sleeve. Pirates like these probably aren't the type to go back empty handed but he had to solve one problem at a time. If they blew up the Burn Em All on the lift that was going to be a problem. And if the Tia was blown up...well he didn't want to think about that.

<<Internal>>
"Rig, get to making repairs. Get that hole patched up."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 6):

The woman in the jump suit listens to Ledo and then holds up a hand, indicating a 'wait a minute' moment.

She slowly reaches into a pocket, trying to look non-threatening, and pulls out a pocket comm.  She holds it up.

"So what you're basically sayin'," squawks the person on the other end of the comm, the same voice Ledo's been talking to.  "Is that you guys will do all the work and we can take all the glory?

"Interesting.  But see, once you're out of my line of sight, I can't be sure what hi-jinx you'll get up to.  You look like the 'jinx' type.

"So Greta here will go with you." Greta, at least your assuming that's the woman in the jump suit's name, blinks, obviously surprised as you by this development.

"If she makes it back in one piece, then we're good.  She doesn't come back..."

The turrents on the Burn Em All start to turn towards Tia, but stop before getting there.

"We've got real good shielding you see.  So I'm willing to take the chance if I have to.  If I have to.

"We have an understanding?"

Ledo shakes his head.

"Absolutely not. Like I said, this place is booby trapped to shit. I can't be responsible for Greta, not like this. She steps where she shouldn't, touches something she shouldn't, hell just exists in the wrong place at the wrong time and she is chunky salsa and you're pissed off at me. Just sit tight and I'll get you out of here. I've almost gotten to the end of this house of horrors and only lost one on the way.

If you absolutely insist on sending someone along then I absolutely insist I am not responsible for their well being and you probably won't be seeing them again. Hell you're probably not seeing me again.

Hey Fritz, did you send them a picture of what Cles did to the madam at the brothel? Hit them with that. Or the VIP room."

He paused letting Fritz send them another collection of carefully curated horror.

"So it's up to you. Your call, but I'm only responsible for me and mine but if you play nice and don't fuck things up maybe we can all get out of this."

In reply to Ledo Typhin (msg # 8):

"I have bigger guns, more shielding, and help outside.  You've given me a bunch of pictures.  A picture might be a thousand words, but that doesn't mean those words aren't lies.

"I'm willin' to play along.  And Greta will keep her com open.  So if she gets it cos she's stupid or in the way, I'll know.  But I'm not just going to believe you cos you say so.  If the situations were reversed, would you believe me cos I sent you a bunch of pictures?

"Greta, don't get in their way and keep your eyes open. Other Guy, please proceed."

It seems negotiations are finished.

Greta licks her lips nervously and shrugs, awkwardly waving 'hi' to Ledo.  "Uhm...nice workin' with you..."

Give me a Mechanic/Edu roll from Rig for assessing the damage to Tia and an ETA on how long it will take him to patch it please.

Also, give me two blind rolls from Tepha and one from Silver.

Thanks
This message was last edited by the GM at 14:17, Sat 30 May 2020.

Rig inspects the damage to his precious ship. It was amazing how much he hated it up until the point it was damaged and then suddenly it was his baby...

OOC:

21:57, Today: Gary 'Rig' Rigan rolled 12 using 2d6+3.  assessing damage.