Traveller T20: Tales of the Bray Keaven [Updated 12-20-05]

[vutpakdi]

What goes wrong next? That would spoil all the fun. As for whether Samana's cargo gets the crew into trouble? Let's just say it helps get us into a situation that we're still dealing with in the current game (almost a year later real time).

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. The cargo might have encouraged the crew to make a decision which starts the chain of events which puts them where they are now, but to say that it helps get the crew into the situation seems a bit of a stretch to me.

Of course, then again, I'm the GM.

Ron

 

[Morte]

I'm not sure that's entirely accurate. The cargo might have encouraged the crew to make a decision which starts the chain of events which puts them where they are now, but to say that it helps get the crew into the situation seems a bit of a stretch to me.

So, what you're saying is, the mess we're in now is entirely our own fault?

Well, uh, yeah, I guess it is...

 

[Shadowdancer]

So, what you're saying is, the mess we're in now is entirely our own fault?

Yeah, but they (Samana's friends) started it!

 

[River Tam]

So what sort of outfit does a naughty schoolgirl wear?

 

[Shadowdancer]

So what sort of outfit does a naughty schoolgirl wear?

I believe these are a good start: Schoolgirl costumes

Why, are you looking for a Halloween costume?

 

[Shadowdancer]

Chapter XXVI​

Date: 223-993
Location: Aboard the Bray Keaven, in jump space between Aleif and Liar's Oath

With the emergency klaxon blaring, the crew of the Bray Keaven hurriedly dons their vacc suits. Martha, with a bit of head start, gets to the lift first and goes downstairs, headed for port engineering.

-----​

Aidan heads straight for the computer console to get a status check and finds that his access has been locked out as well and reports this fact to the others over the comm. Pulling out his tabletcomp, he starts working his way back into the system.

-----​

When the lift returns to the lounge, Swann, Vasilii, Saro, and Ian get onto the lift and head downstairs as well. When the lift gets to the bottom, Vasilii heads towards the bridge, Swann towards life support, Saro towards the improvised sickbay, and Ian waits near the lift trying to decide where to go next.

-----​

Vargas rather painfully gets into his vacc suit and then shoves Rusti in to the rescue ball in the stateroom. He heads out of the improvised sickbay where he almost collides with Kevon, who is headed towards the bridge.

As Kevon and Vargas are disentangling themselves, the iris valve heading towards the port cargolock opens and a vacc–suited humanoid starts to charge through. The humanoid is wearing a standard vacc suit whose surface seems to blend in with the walls and deck. The humanoid skids to a halt, throws its left arm back to stop a second vacc–suited humanoid, and then raises its right arm to point a snub SMG at Kevon and Vargas. The vacc–suited humanoids start slowly walking backwards.

Upon seeing the two intruders, Vargas attempts to become part of the bulkhead. Unfortunately, he again challenges the law that two objects cannot occupy the same space in time and, again, does not win.

After a moment which seems to last far too short, the first vacc–suited humanoid sprays a burst at Kevon and Vargas. Though initially surprised, Kevon manages to throw himself towards the port wall while drawing his laser pistol, and no rounds strike him. Vargas is not so lucky, and a round catches him hard in the left shoulder. “I’m hit!” he grunts.

Kevon returns fire with his laser pistol as the iris valve starts closing, probably triggered by the second vacc–suited humanoid. The beam hits the first vacc–suited humanoid squarely in the abdomen, and the sophont noticeably bends over in pain.

As the iris valve completes shutting, Kevon thinks to himself, among other things, “What the hell? I must have Vargrs on the brain, but those looked like Vargrs in those vacc suits.”

“For the love of everything noble!” the lieutenant commander growls as he taps his suit comm and kneels down next to Emile. “Mr. Kugiikishshi, lock down all port–side personnel doors from Frame 12, aft, and lock down all cargo doors. We have two intruders in the port passageway just aft of the Frame 12 door; at least one has a SMG. Ian, I need you at my location. Doctor Talbek, Mr. Vargas took a hit.”

-----​

“Roger that! I’ll be there ASAP.” Ian makes sure his gauss pistol is chambered and ready for action with a full clip. He heads toward Kevon’s and Vargas’ position via the most direct route.

-----​

Kevon keeps his eye on the iris valve doors, standing guard over Emile until Ian and Saro reach the pair.

-----​

Vasilii’s jaw hangs open inside his suit, and he almost blurts assorted dumb phrases, before he gets it together and reports to Kevon.

“Roger that. I am on the bridge, and I see no intruders. I will secure the area. Please advise me before you come through the door.”

Vasilii locks the bridge door before examining the bridge very carefully for chameleon–suited or otherwise concealed figures. He then tries to access the bridge stations — he eventually works through trying all of them — and gets the same “access denied” message that Martha and Aidan have seen. So, at this point, he only has control over the iris valve to the bridge and the lights on the bridge.

The Vilani merchant comms Kevon. “I’m locked out of the bridge computer system, Captain. Looks like your intruders have been in the system. I can’t access those functions. I’ll see if I can get at them somehow.” Then he has a go at getting past the barriers.

-----​

Aidan is concentrating on breaking the computer lockout. He hears word of the gunshots and curses under his breath. “Just once, a quiet trip? Well, we had one, I guess two is too much to ask for. Bloody damn computer lockout. Let’s see what we have here.”

He buries himself back into the problem, redoubling his efforts after a glance to make sure that his sword and pistol are near at hand.

-----​

While he hustles through the ship’s corridors toward the med station and Emile, Saro’s mind races through a myriad of doomsday scenarios.

As he listens to the report of gunfire and boarders over his comm Saro mumbles to himself, “Right on schedule. It wouldn’t be a complete emergency without some gunfire.”

Saro suddenly starts moving a bit faster as a thought hits him. “Vargas! If there’s bullets flying around, he’ll be catching a few — the man is the most natural damage magnet I’ve ever met.”

As he rushes to the next doorway another thought passes through his head. “If I’m always going to be running to the sickbay like this, I really need to move my cabin closer. I’m getting tired of these midnight marathon races.”

-----​

When Martha hears about the intruders and the gunshots fired a few meters from her current position, she crouches down on the floor and comms, “What’s going on?”

After getting a sitrep, Martha breaks into a sprint, moving towards the ship’s locker where her weapons are stored. “Hittin’ the locker, gentlemen. They’re heading to port engineering! Jump drives are at risk. Vargas, now’s the time to decide whose side you are on.”

-----​

Swann starts sprinting aft and draws his autopistol. He keys his suit comm. “This is Swann. Vasilii, lock down the cargo doors between the main cargo bay and the starboard cargolock, and the iris from main cargo into starboard engineering as well.

“I’m going to cross through upper starboard engineering into upper port engineer-ing, come up on them from behind. Don’t lock down the valve between starboard and port engineering until I get through. I’ll comm you.”

-----​

“Sorry, Mr. Hellinic, I have no control over the doors. I’m locked out of all systems. I can work the lights, and that’s about it.”

-----​

“Dammit!” Kevon thinks as he keeps watch on the door. “Mr. Silver, we need system access as soon as possible! Swann, let me know when you’re about to enter port engineering, I’ll go down the port passageway. We need someone to cover the cargo bay.”

-----​

Aidan keys his suit comm. “This is Aidan. Working on it. Over.”

-----​

Martha and Saro rush to the corridor just outside of the ship’s locker and the improvised sickbay. They alert Kevon to their arrival just in time to avoid being shot as they round the corner. Saro huddles over Emile and checks out his condition quickly.

Vargas is bleeding inside his suit, but luckily his suit auto–seal seems to have worked and has sealed where the snub SMG round penetrated.

-----​

Ian arrives a few seconds behind Martha and Saro. He glances at Vargas with Saro attending him. “Cap’n, what are we up against here? How many and weapon type?” Kevon starts to brief him.

-----​

Martha opens the ship’s locker, and finds that there are three shotguns loaded with buckshot and three snub pistols available. There are magazines filled with tranq and normal rounds for the snub pistols. She starts loading weapons in preparation of passing them out to crewmembers.

“Martha, my choice is now and always will be to this crew and ship,” Vargas says. “If possible, try to capture one of these intruders alive. I will take personal pleasure in getting to the bottom of this.”

As Martha focuses on her work, she says, “Thanks, Vargas. That’s what I wanted to hear!” She turns her head for a moment to look over at him. “You gonna be OK? Don’t want to leave you there if you think you’re going to bleed out, but I also don’t want them to collapse our jump field prematurely. That’s a guaranteed misjump, and I don’t relish trying those odds.”

“Thank you for your concern, Martha. However, if the ship is lost, we all die. Go take care of the jump drives. I will be OK. Besides, the doctor is here.”

Vargas then applies pressure to the wound while Saro opens his medkit. The ex–Scout says again, “Remember, try to capture at least one of them alive, I want to question them.”

“Martha, you do what you need to, I’ll take care of Emile. As usual,” Saro sighs, trying to work in the rapidly congesting hallway.

“Here, catch,” Martha throws Vargas a shotgun. “Safety’s on.” As she mentions that, she thumbs her own weapon’s safety off.

“So Doc, how do I look,” Vargas asks.

“Well, not great, but I’ve gotten used to expecting worse with you, Emile,” Saro says. “I could take care of this newest injury easily, if we weren’t suited up. And I know you are champing at the bit to get in on the action. So here’s my compro-mise; you can sit inside the doorway to the sickbay covering the hallway to aft. I’ll stay with you and assist. If you try to jump up and run around, I’ll knock you out myself. Understood?”

“Thank you, doctor, for the great medical advice. There is something about the pain in my shoulder and the rest of my body that makes me inclined to take that advice seriously.”

Vargas thinks to himself, “Maybe it is something about the ‘knock you out myself’ that makes the advice more attractive.”

Saro readies a snub pistol with tranq rounds and positions himself in the sickbay door, standing behind Emile, watching down the hallway to aft.

Saro keys his comm and lets the others know that he and Emile will be staying put and covering the hallway near the sickbay, and to let him know if (when) someone needs his services.

Vargas is armed with a shotgun to backup Saro in the event that the tranq rounds are not effective. As Vargas sits waiting for any sign of the intruders he muses on the old philosophical statement, “That which does not kill you, makes you stronger.”

Oddly enough, and unbeknownst to either party, at the exact same moment Saro is thinking cynically to himself, “That which does not kill you — comes back to have a second go at it.”

-----​

“Doc, take care of Vargas. We’ll see what we can do with the intruders,” Ian says. Looking at Martha and Kevon, he says, “Let’s go.”

After sorting themselves out in terms of weapons, Kevon, Martha, and Ian head down the corridor towards port engineering with Ian at point and Martha in the rear. With their hearts pounding as each iris valve opens to an empty corridor, they pass through the port cargolock and into the low berth area.

In the port cargolock, the trio notes that the middle access door of the “cloned human organs” container has been opened and about 10 small– to medium–sized containers litter the floor.

Glancing at the opened container, Ian says, “Dammit, looks like we got ourselves an old–fashioned Trojan Horse.”

“Love me tender,” Martha swears under her breath. A little louder, she says, “Doc, there’s a problem with the organs we’re transferring. Something has eaten them, or was somehow hidden among them.”

Then she rushes on toward port engineering, where the wolves were in her dreams.

They pause outside of the iris valve to port engineering, waiting to hear from Swann.

“Swann, talk to me. What’s going on? How’s life support?” Martha pauses.

-----​

With his autopistol leading the way, Swann goes through the starboard cargolock and past life support before entering into starboard engineering. After quickly checking the compartment for intruders, he climbs the ladder and keys the iris valve leading to upper starboard engineering. The iris valve refuses to open and flashes an “access denied” message on the control screen.

In frustration, Swann slaps a hand against the bulkhead next to the iris valve controls. “Frell!” he thinks. “This is taking too much time.”

He keys his suit comm. “Kevon, this is Swann. I’m in lower starboard engineering. I can’t gain access to upper starboard engineering.”

-----​

A rather guttural growl escapes Martha’s throat, born of frustration and adrenaline.

-----​

“Aidan, how are you doing? We really need to retake control of the security system so we can move around and stop these geeches from doing the same,” Swann continues.

-----​

“Aidan, you cracked it once! Can’t you break it again?!?!?! Damn it, man!” Martha growls.

-----​

In his stateroom, Aidan continues to furiously work on getting access to the computer system. At first, he isn’t very successful, but suddenly — using a variant of his technique that he used the first time he broke into the system — he manages to gain access through a sublevel and inserts himself again as an administrative user. All of the other users have been deleted and a new one, “Sadek,” has been added.

Aidan promptly deletes the odd new user and brings up the anti–hijack program. The anti–hijack program is now running and indicates that all iris valves are locked down except for the iris valve from port engineering to upper port engineering, which is currently open according to the program. Aidan gulps when he realizes that upper engineering is where the jump drives are.

Aidan flips between the various vidcam feeds mounted on the iris valve controls in port engineering, upper port engineering and upper starboard engineering. His reviews of each feed are fairly cursory, and the vidcams don’t show the entire space in each (being concentrated on the area just in front of the iris valve), but he does spot three humanoid shapes. All three appear to be wearing active camouflage–equipped vacc suits given how they blend into the background.

One is seated at a console in upper port engineering. A second is just pulling himself onto the floor of upper port engineering from the open iris valve leading to port engineering. A third is on the ladder from port engineering to the open iris valve.

He keys the suit comm. “Martha, Swann, I’ve got control, but the iris valve in upper engineering is not locked. Want me to close it down now? There’s someone in there. In about 10 seconds, I’m turning off the gravity in there and turning it back on. Hold on!”

-----​

“Knock ’em around, Mr. Silver, both port and starboard upper compartments,” Kevon orders through comms, praying that the Vargrs aren’t listening in on the comm frequency.

-----​

Swann adds quickly, “Unlock the valves at mine and Kevon’s positions first so we can get in there quickly and take them prisoner while they’re disoriented.”

-----​

“On it gentlemen. Swann, doors unlocked, knocking proceeding!”

-----​

“Good to see you can come through in a crunch, Mr. Cuddles in Fine Clothing,” Martha thinks to herself as she awaits the opening of her engineering bays.

Ian squats down a bit and positions himself to the right side of the corridor to allow Kevon room to shoot. With gauss pistol at the ready, he activates his suit comm. “Kevon, Martha. Y’all ready?”

“I’m following your lead, Mr. McConnell,” the lieutenant commander replies.

Martha nods. “Ready to rock and roll,” she mutters, drawing her pistol and taking aim at the door, and whatever may lie beyond it.

 

[Broccli_Head]

Get 'em crew!

 

[River Tam]

I believe these are a good start: Schoolgirl costumes

Why, are you looking for a Halloween costume?

No, thanks.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Chapter XXVII​

Date: 223-993
Location: Aboard the Bray Keaven, in jump space between Aleif and Liar's Oath

Aidan warns the rest of the crew of his plan and gives a countdown. With a mischievous grin, he unlocks all iris valves except for the one leading from port engineering to upper port engineering, shuts that open iris valve, and then flips the gravity off for a few seconds. When he turns the gravity back on, he sets it at 2G in upper port engineering and 1G in upper starboard engineering.

The vacc–suited figure at the jump drive console starts drifting up and flailing a bit before it is slammed to the floor. The vacc–suited figure on the floor was unfortunately pushing up to his feet when the gravity was turned off, so he goes flying a little higher than intended before slamming back down to the floor. The vacc–suited figure on the ladder starts slapping at the iris valve controls to no avail.

When he turns the gravity back on at 2G, Aidan also calmly says, “Now.” Swann and Ian open their respective iris valves.

-----​

Swann pokes his pistol and his head up the iris valve opening. After not seeing anything waiting for him, he gets into upper starboard engineering, does a quick scan, and gets to the iris valve leading to the corridor to upper port engineering.

-----​

As the iris valve opens, Ian, Kevon, and Martha see the vacc–suited figure on the ladder just starting to turn towards them and swing his snub SMG up.

Kevon fires first and hits the figure in the left calf.

Ian, mindful of the sensitive equipment, fires a shot that hits the figure in the right side.

The figure on the ladder sprays a burst towards Ian, Kevon, and Martha. A single snub SMG round hits Kevon in the upper right thigh. Ian and Martha emerge unscathed.

Martha fires a tranq round from her snub pistol. The round hits the vacc–suited figure squarely in its upper right arm. The sophont immediately drops the snub SMG and then, a moment later, loses its grip and falls to the floor.

“That’s one,” she says more to herself than others. “Come on, boys, there’s two more to go.”

Rushing forward, Ian goes to make sure that the vacc–suited figure is disarmed while Martha and Kevon do a quick scan of the area. They find nothing.

“Good shooting, guys!” Ian comments as he heads over to the immobile figure. After Ian verifies that the intruder is incapacitated, he secures the sophont’s weapon by unloading it and throwing it down the corridor toward Vargas and Saro.

He then queries the other two. “Everybody OK?”

Kevon quickly checks his wound for continued bleeding, expecting the vacc suit to self-seal momentarily. He’s had worse, and a repel boarders is no time to be taking a seat.

After getting an affirmative from Kevon and Martha, Ian updates the rest of the crew. “Ian here. We have disabled one intruder. He appears to be alive and unconscious. We will be heading to upper port engineering next. Aidan, what is the situation in that area?”

-----​

Vargas listens to the action on his suit comm and his spirits soar when he hears of at least one possible prisoner.

“I do not know what is in those containers that Jarvis has us transporting but it seems to be hotter then we thought,” he says to Saro.

He and Doc continue their watch on the corridor.

-----​

Vasilii continues to guard the bridge, getting more and more nervous as he fights down the urge to go running off into the middle of a gunfight he’ll be no good at and interfere with the professionals’ plans. He hopes the fight in engineering ends soon.

-----​

Swann comms Aidan. “I think the patients in upper port engineering need another session of the special treatment.”

-----​

“Excellent idea, Swann — the patients appear to still be moving around. Let’s see if I can fix that.” Aidan starts working out in the back of his mind new backdoors into the computer system to guard against this kind of thing and whistles a happy tune as he prepares to slams the intruders around a bit more with the grav system.

-----​

While conversing with Aidan, Ian climbs the ladder to the iris valve leading to upper port engineering. “I am in position, let me know when to enter.”

-----​

Swann engages the safety of his autopistol, holsters it, draws his snub pistol with traq rounds, and takes the safety off. He then opens the iris valve and moves quickly down the corridor to the iris valve leading to upper port engineering.

He halts and comms the others. “Kevon, Ian. I’m about to enter upper port engineering. Aidan, is it OK to enter?”

-----​

Relieved, Martha queries Aidan, her eyes focused momentarily on a diagnostic console. “Silver, you got time to get me back on the box, too? Or are you busy up there?”

-----​

“Good to hear from you, m’dear,” Aidan replies. “Hold on just a second and I’ll give you access. Let me take care of a couple of little problems in engineering first. Swann! Hold at the door for just a second. Ian, you too. When I say now, go.”

Aidan sees that both intruders in upper port engineering are still moving, with the one at the console trying to get back into the seat and strap itself in. Since being strapped in isn’t quite fair, Aidan moves to switch the gravity in the section to -1G for a couple of seconds.

-----​

Over the emergency channel, everyone hears in an oddly accented and strained voice, “That’s enough, one more trick and we’ll bl—GRRRRK . . . THUD . . . UGGGHH.”

-----​

Aidan then flips the gravity to 2G for a couple of seconds, back to -1G for a couple of seconds, back to 2G, and finally back to 1G. As far as he can tell from the iris valve access cameras, neither intruder is moving.

-----​

While Aidan is playing intruder billiards, Ian and Kevon climb the ladder to wait for Aidan’s signal to key open their iris valve to upper port engineering.

-----​

“NOW! Ian, Swann, please enter if you haven’t already, we have a couple of friends who have been up and down on their luck.”

-----​

After getting Aidan’s signal — and cross–checking locations and actions — Swann, Ian, and Kevon scramble into upper port engineering. They find two vacc–suited Vargrs who don’t appear to be moving at all. Their active camouflage systems also appear to have been damaged or destroyed in the pounding since the vacc suits are now clearly visible. A significant amount of blood coats the insides of their face-plates. Both appear to have been armed with snub SMGs. A quick search reveals nothing that immediately looks like an explosive.

-----​

Meanwhile, Aidan reactivates the workstation in port engineering and grants Martha access to the computer system. “OK, Martha, let’s see what I can do for you. I wanted to give you a status report, but you’re going to have to teach me something about engineering first, unless you want a legal review of the state of the engines.” He snorts in a most ungentlemanly fashion. “Anyway, try logging in now. Use your name and use your saint’s name as the password.”

Finishing with gravity checking the intruders, Aidan starts reactivating the ship intruder defenses and starts an extensive check into the computer system, looking for trojan horses, viruses et cetera. He's humming an ancient tune while working — “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” He likes the “terrible swift sword” part.

-----​

Martha’s very quick check doesn’t reveal anything amiss with the jump drives. “Gentlemen, at first glance, all jump drive readings appear to be within acceptable parameters. I’m going to hit life support now, and see what’s up with that. If any-one starts getting jump sick, tell the Doc. It’s one of the first signs of a misjump.”

Martha then turns her attentions to the life support issues, running a diagnostic and implementing any necessary changes.

“Aidan, great work! Any idea how they got into the system?” Martha asks the experienced hacker.

She hears a click and rapid fire mumbling over the suit comm. It sounds very intent. Then actual communication at the human level breaks out very rapidly and somewhat breathlessly. “Martha? Ah yes, hello dear lady. This is really quite fasci-nating! It appears that a trojan horse masked as a routine cargo lock environmental status check loaded into the communications subsystem was used, which then loaded another program to wipe out our users, freeze the controls and insert an-other privileged user. I’ll be adding some filtering to take care of this in the future, plus our own back door just in case. Wouldn’t want this to happen again.

“Now, I’m still untangling some threads here . . . ” the communication goes virtually subvocal again as Aidan dives back in headfirst. Eventually he remembers to click the comm off.

-----​

Ian searches the motionless bodies for weapons and anything that may look like a remote control device (a small transmitter to detonate a bomb, perhaps?). While he is checking them out, he activates his comm. “Swann, Kevon. Find something to tie these two s up, pronto. I’m gonna head back down the ladder and secure the one down there. Would hate for him to wake up and bother Martha.”

Kevon looks around the compartment for some “8–G adhesive,” also known by its ancient name, “duct tape,” and proceeds to use it liberally on both intruders — wrists, torso at the elbows, knees, and ankles. “These furballs aren’t going anywhere,” he grunts.

Swann helps Kevon secure the intruders. Then he checks to see if they are alive. He finds the life signs dummy light, which measures pulse, on the outside of the vacc suit and finds it off.

After the intruders are secured, Ian does a quick search. He finds two snub SMGs with four clips apiece (three regular, one tranq), and a thoroughly beat up mini-comp that looks inoperable, or at least the screen remains dark. Nothing that immediately looks like a transmitter.

-----​

After he climbs down to port engineering, Ian engages his comm again. “Doc, we have three injured intruders on board. Work ’em in as you see fit. Kevon also has been shot, but does not appear to be seriously wounded.

“Martha, got anything around here to tie this guy up?”

Martha offers some spare wiring and cable conduit from the stores, “unless you want to have some fun. There’s a roll of 8–G Adhesive upstairs in one of the tool bins. It’ll hold ’em, and rip their hairs out when removed, if you want to strip them down.

“By the way, once we’ve talked with them, are you going to space them into jump space? Or keep them alive to turn over to the authorities at Liar’s Oath? We’re in our rights, either way.”

“Thanks, I’ll take some of that wiring for now.’ Ian securely binds the intruder’s hands, then feet, and then his hands to his feet. “I believe this used to be called ‘hog tied,’ but I could be mistaken,” he says with a satisfied grin.

Then his face turns more serious. “As to what we are gonna do with them, I guess that is up for discussion. I’d like Vargas to have a chat with them. It may be better punishment to hand them over to the Vargrs. We’ll see.”

He bends down and gives the knots a couple of hard yanks to make sure they are secure. “I think we need to check out that container of cloned organs ASAP.” Keying his comm, he says, “Swann, Kevon. Drop those two up there down the hatch. I’d like to keep them all together so they’ll be easier to keep an eye on. Don’t worry,” he says with a chuckle, “I’ll catch them!

“Also, we need a to check out that container of cloned organs, pronto. It looks like that is the source of our trouble.”

-----​

After checking the jump drives, Martha looks at the life support systems log. Life support seems to be functioning normally except that there is now a vacuum throughout the ship. It looks like the system was keyed to start slowly evacuating the ship about 30 minutes ago from the console in port engineering where she is now by the new user that was added through the trojan horse. The evacuation of air was turned onto full speed about the time when Martha hit the emergency alarm. Martha starts the life support system to repressurize the ship, which will take a few minutes.

-----​

After Martha indicates that the ship has been repressurized, Swann and Kevon remove the helmets of the two intruders in upper port engineering. The one that Kevon shot is a large Vargr with dark gray, almost black fur. He (or she) is definitely dead. The one that was close to the engineering console is a smaller Vargr with reddish orange–brown fur. She/he is also definitely dead. Just so that they are in one place, Swann and Kevon drop the two bodies down to port engineering with a sickly wet thud since Ian misses the catch. On the bright side, Ian did move the tranquilized Vargr out of the way.

After dropping the two bodies down, Swann and Kevon head over to the cloned organs container. Tearing open one of the containers does reveal what looks to be a human kidney, now just a little cool rather than frozen. Looking in the open middle (outside) door to the cargo container reveals a false door on that level which leads to an enclosed, padded area with a vidscreen, some ration packs, a book reader, and two open sliding panels — one that leads to the upper third of the cargo container and one that leads to the lower third of the cargo container.

Kevon’s quick examination reminds him of a couple of similar containers that he has seen pirates (both human and non–human) use for stowing onboard ship and taking small merchants from the inside.

After examining the cargo container, Kevon and Swann do a quick search of the ship and find no other evidence of intruders.

Saro gets Vargas back to the now pressurized sickbay and helps him remove his vacc suit so that the doctor can treat the ex–Scout’s latest wound.

 

[Shadowdancer]

Chapter XXVIII​

Date: 223-993
Location: Aboard the Bray Keaven, in jump space between Aleif and Liar's Oath

Once things settle down, Vasilii makes his way to engineering to swap tales with the others and take a look at the Vargr. He looks a bit nervy until he sees the Vargr, then steely.

He sees the snub SMGs that Ian has gathered and asks, “Mind if I check those out? With all the activity around here . . . ”

“Nope, help yourself,” Ian says. “Could come in handy.”

Vasilii looks one of the weapons over and asks the ex–Marine, “These things need a Class 3 permit, don’t they? I’ve only got a Class 2. Oh well, maybe I can get one.”

Ian grimaces, then slowly shakes his head, murmuring, “Let’s not do that again!”

Vasilii rushes to add. “Properly, I mean. Make a formal application, showing a ‘suitable need,’ and all the rest. After two pirate attacks and a war on Aleif, I might just make a case on that one.”

The pained look leaves Ian’s face. ‘Hmm, you may be right. Worth a try, anyway.”

-----​

When he gets a chance, Vasilii asks Aidan about the application process for a snub SMG. “We can easily submit the appropriate waver papers for that, Vasilii. There are a couple of legal forms that I’d be more than happy to help with — we need all the firepower we can get.”

Aidan clears his throat. “But you would need to have some training after that.” He grins.

-----​

The Vilani Merchant also takes the opportunity to inspect the frozen organs transport container the would–be hijackers hid inside. When he peeks inside, he looks gutted. “Oh, how did I let that . . . ”

“Vasilii, don’t be too hard on yourself,” Ian says. “This whole event falls squarely in my lap. I dropped the ball. I let a few minor injuries get in the way of me doing my job! It won’t happen again, I assure you.”

-----​

After Saro takes a look at his wounds, Vargas keys his suit comm to the others and requests that the living Vargr not be allowed to see the dead. “I want to have a chat with this survivor, and I don’t want the survivor to know that its companions are already dead.”

Vargas then turns to Saro and says, “Doctor, I seem to always need your professional services. Maybe it is time to consider the medical slow drug, assuming that we do not have any more unpleasant surprises aboard. May I stagger to the crew’s lounge to get something to drink before we start treatment?

“I want to question that Vargr after this treatment. Please make sure that the guest is kept in the dark about its companions. Maybe we could put it in a low berth for the time being?”

“If we are sure that we are in the clear, I am wholeheartedly in support of admin-istering the drug to you at this point,” Saro answers Emile. “As long as your drink is brief, I have no problem with a visit to the lounge.”

Helping Emile up and supporting him as they make their way to the lounge, Saro starts to rant. “I am certainly going to push for our visitor to be kept cold where he won’t be anymore trouble. I’m also going to research how effectively we can use interstellar law to prosecute our little organ cloning friends. There must be something against conspiring to and/or abetting a conspiracy to commit the piracy of a starship and its cargoes in jump space transit. Perhaps we can force a nice fine out of the lying bastards.

“I for one am tired of taking it on the chin while everyone and their relatives assault us and try to steal our property. We need to start fighting back, and I ain’t just talking about shooting up the soldiers that are sent our way; I mean going after the bastards that hire and direct them.”

-----​

Martha makes sure everything is secure before she calms down enough to leave port engineering. She heads to the crew lounge for a quick bite to eat as she unwinds. “I’m beat,” she says, wiping her brow. “One more cup of bitterstouts, and I’m hitting the sack for a quick nap.” She smiles softly, gazing into her cup.

In the silent span of a few seconds, Martha’s expression changes subtly, and the smile fades as she becomes lost in thought. “You know, it’s weird that I dreamed that. Wolves running around m– the ship, three of them, and they looked exactly like the Vargr raiders and everything!”

She shakes her head but for a moment, then looks up. She looks around at her shipmates and asks them, “You ever do that before? You know, dream about something before it happens, and then it goes down, just like in your dream?”

Swann smiles and gazes into the distance. “There were those twins on Galir. That happened pretty much the way I dreamed it.”

“I’ve had the déjà vu thing before, but I can’t say any of my dreams have come true like that,” Kevon answers, stretching his injured leg out as he sits down next to her with his own cup of java, then frowns slightly. “Has this happened to you a lot?”

Ian walks in the lounge to grab cup of whatever is available or already prepared.

Martha shakes her head. “Sometimes, but it’s always nightmares, and never like this. I wonder if that woman on Sentry did something to my head while she was in there?”

“Martha, this is not the first time you have said something about this,” Vargas says. “I wonder if you may have some telepathic powers. In some of the sectors in which I have served, psionic powers were studied and encouraged. You may consider having a psionic test administered if we can find a branch of the psionics institute somewhere.”

Kevon’s mouthful of coffee ends up in a fine brown spray that showers Emile. He glares sternly at the injured pilot, his eyes briefly darting towards Saro as he resists the urge to pop the Vargr–phile upside the head.

“What the . . . !?”

Martha looks over at Vargas, shock and some fear abundantly clear upon her face. “Vargas! Don’t even joke like that! I’m not some mind–raping Zhodani! You’ve seen the stuff they do on the holovids! Can you picture me making people’s ears bleed as I boil their brains out? Or the sheer pleasure they get from announcing a person’s secret shames to the world?”

Martha harrumphs. “I’m not like that, not one bit! You hear me!” The young engineer bites her lower lip as she glares angrily at Emile.

-----​

Saro is standing behind Emile, drinking some lukewarm caffeinated substance, listening to Martha and Kevon, and looking thoughtful when Vargas makes his proclamation.

Saro’s eyes go wide and he chokes on his drink, spilling some on his coverall. Coughing to cover his surprise, he looks askance at Vargas.

Although he intellectually understands that psionics are not necessarily “evil” as the Imperial government propaganda pushes, after a lifetime under an anti–psionic environment, mere mentions of psionics provoke an unpleasant visceral reaction and are rare in polite conversation.

“Is he incredibly brave or simply not thinking?” Saro’s mind races. “Here he sits calmly attributing illegal psionic powers to Martha — and in front of a nominal representative of the Imperial military, no less.”

-----​

“I should check into the legalities of psionics in this area,” Aidan says. “Just to check for prejudices we might run into accessing such facilities. Interesting.” He dives into the law references stored in his handcomp.

-----​

Ian glances at the Doc, then checks out the reactions of the others in the lounge area with a concerned look on his face. Hoping to quickly change the subject, Ian walks over to the table and address Saro, a bit louder than necessary. “So Doc, we have an unconscious and injured Vargr all tied up in engineering. When you get Vargas all settled in, care to check him out? I believe, Vargas, you wanted us to keep one alive so you could have a chat with him, correct?”

Ian takes a gulp of his drink. “Also, what to do with the two bodies? Store’m in low berth, or space’m? Or else we could stuff’m back in the box the came in and crank the freezer back on?”

-----​

“Martha, you have my deepest apologies for upsetting you,” Vargas says, then thinks to himself, “I will pursue this later when we are alone and she is calmer.”

He then quickly changes the subject to respond to Ian. “Yes, Ian, I certainly want to have a chat with our unwelcome guest. It might be a good idea to put the bodies in the freeze cycle of their box until we are ready to have the talk. I, for one, have several questions that need to be answered. This Vargr has the answers and it should give them to us, must give them to us.”

Then turning aside he mumbles, “It had better give them to us. This prisoner has no idea of what has happened and this can be used to our advantage if we can keep it in the dark.”

-----​

“I, for one, vote to low berth them until we can turn them over to authorities. If Emile, or anyone else, wishes to question the survivor I can always thaw him out when necessary,” Saro states, looking grateful for the distraction. “As soon as we’re done here though, I want to put Emile under and start his healing process — again. And everyone else who is injured will meet me in the sick bay afterwards so that I can see to their injuries. Then I’ll check out our unwelcome guest.”

Saro then groans. “D’oh! Scratch that low berth idea. They’re already full with passengers. Hmm, well, I can either hook our friend to a tranq drip or administer a dose of MSD to him as well; that would knock him out for a day.”

His eyes still firmly on Emile, the lieutenant commander says, “I agree that we should hold the bodies to turn them over to the authorities. I, for one, want to know who they were, if our guest decides not to talk.

“We’ll keep the living one out of storage for now, until we can interrogate him,” Kevon adds, allowing his eyes to fall on someone other than Vargas as he looks at Ian. “I’ll be on the bridge.”

“Does anyone have electronics skill where we may be able to repair or at least recover the memory on the rather beat up handcomp?” Vargas asks. “I think there may be some rather valuable data on that unit.

“Also it might be a good idea to completely search our little trojan horse in the cargo hold. The more information we have about these clowns, the better our position will be in the questioning of our prisoner.

“Also, the fact that the survivor does not know the fate of its companions will be very useful. Doctor, maybe we should keep this survivor under some kind of seda-tion if we cannot freeze it. I personally look forward to having a chat with that individual.”

Vargas then turns to Saro and says, “Doctor, now that the excitement is beginning to wear off, I feel terrible. Maybe you should start my treatment before I really start to feel bad.”

Kevon stops on his way out of the lounge. “Unfortunately, I’ve only had a little training in electronics — and it’s been like 20 years,” he admits. “But, if no one else is skilled, I can always give it a try.”

Martha, being Class III certified in electronics and Class II certified in computers, considers for a moment volunteering her skills, but is still somewhat miffed at Vargas for calling her a Zhodani.

Swann says, “I’m sure Aidan and I can handle that.” Aidan nods as he continues to study his law references.

-----​

After Saro and Vargas leave the lounge, Swann asks Martha if she will help him and Aidan with the handcomp. She readily agrees.

-----​

Ian leaves to help Saro with moving Vargas back to the sickbay. On the way he asks Saro, “Doc, you want me to bring the live one forward to the unused cabin? Vargas mentioned not wanting him to see his dead comrades. I just need to put him somewhere while we deal with the others. I’m sure Martha would appreciate it if we cleaned up her work space a bit.”

“As I said before, I’d rather keep our friend on ice until we are all ready to — talk — to him,” Saro says. “And speaking of the unused cabin — during this latest incident I started thinking, and unless anyone has any objections, I'd like to recommend some room swaps.

“I’m getting tired of running back and forth from my cabin to the sickbay in emer-gencies, so in order to expedite things I’d like to suggest the wall between the sickbay and the adjacent cabin be taken down. That way I can move some of my things there and I’ll be able to stay in the sickbay whenever there are patients to attend to, or more likely — given the propensity of this crew — I’ll be using the extra space to attend to more of y’all all at once.”