Aidan broadcasts on his suit comm: "Lady and gentlemen, after you’ve locked down the crew of the Oser, you may to check the inspection numbers of those cubes. You can do that under blacklight. I’d be happy to show you the Imperial Warrant certifying the contents of the cubes.
Aidan then sits down at a computer terminal and, for as long as he has access start putting in some better safeguards against hackers such as himself. "Naturally," he thinks, "some backdoors might sneak in."
-----
Aidan’s reference to the cubes makes Vasilii pause in his searching. "Well now, that’s the second times he’s mentioned those cubes. He has some ‘details’ about the cubes, along with knowing about them in the first place, then gets insistent on ‘protecting his interests,’ " Vasilii thinks to himself. "More than enough for me," he decides.
Over his suit comm, Vasilii says, "Emile, Vasilii. My friend, I think it’s time to do what we should have done in the first place. Go get those mystery boxes and keep them somewhere where you can keep an eye on them until the naval ship gets here, we’re ending this mess tonight."
From the background Saro mutters loudly, "Space them. Didn’t I say to space them? I must not have, nobody seems to have heard it."
Vasilii continues. "And if you see Aidan Silver in your travels, shoot him on sight. No talk, just shoot. Then shut down all computer access from everywhere but the bridge.
"Martha, I think for now we should forget the repairs — let’s just batten down the hatches until they get here. Besides, Aidan Silver did something to bypass the ship’s security, and for all we know he did something to the computer. Could you have a look and see if you can find out what he did and if it did any permanent damage? And then do what you can to keep him locked out of it until the Navy gets here?"
-----
With an exasperated gasp, Martha replies, "Vasilii, with all due respect, you do your job and I’ll do mine."
-----
Vasilii mutes his suit mike as she continues and turns to Saro. "There goes the neighborhood. What have I done?" he muses.
-----
"If that bastard broke into security, it’d probably be an easy matter for you or Kevon to investigate," Martha says. "If I don’t get these comms online, who knows what the Impies will do when they come upon us and no one answers their hails."
-----
Vasilii turns his mike back on, contemplating that last remark. "Hmm. Yeah, that is a good point. Ummm," he says, looking around to mentally assess the situation. Then he looks toward the Oser’s bridge and continues. "I’m pretty sure one of Kevon’s shots landed in the Oser’s avionics. Swann and Ian are interrogating one of the Oser’s crew that was up there. As soon as I can get in there, I’ll have a look at what’s working and what isn’t. If the comms over here are still up, I’ll send the Imperials an update and let them know the Keaven’s comms are out."
-----
Martha is still not appeased. "You want Silver held? Go to the ship’s locker and get my gun. There’s a clip of tranq rounds. Shoot him with it until he passes out. I don’t care what he says — if you find out he violated our security protocols, he’s either in league with the pirates, or he’s a loose cannon. Either of them is going to get him spaced if he screws with my ship, do you copy?!?! Now, let me get back to my job, here! Thank you!"
With that, Martha cuts off her connection to the general comm link, but keeps a private channel open to Kevon on the bridge, just in case of emergencies. "Now, maybe I can get some work done," she thinks.
-----
The lieutenant commander chuckles, adding quietly, "Remind me to stay on your good side," as he starts to pore through the security logs for Mr. Silver’s hacking attempts.
"Mr. Kugiikishshi, I’ll look into the logs and evaluate the system security as best I can to free Ms. Smythe up to her more important duties," he says.
-----
Hearing Martha click off her comm before he can say anything, Vasilii’s taken aback for a moment by the abruptness. Then he looks at Saro. "My! The Empress has spoken. I was about to tell her," he adds, "that she’s the one person I would not presume to argue with, but I guess that’s her loss.
"Alright, I’m gonna see if I can track down another vacc suit before I take this one off. When I get out of this one, can you have a look at this?" he asks, pointing to the shrapnel in his side.
With the barrel of a shotgun pressing into the back of his head, the sandy–haired fellow from the Oser’s bridge seems to be a little nervous, and his eyes dart from Swann’s face to Ian’s gauss pistol.
"Uh, uh uh, my name is G.. G... Guderin Ibrihim. No, there isn’t anyone else onboard. I... I... I... don’t know who we’re working for. Mark did all the talking. Mark just said that they’d pay us KCr300 for a cube."
Both Swann and Ian feel that he is telling the truth. But they keep questioning him just to be sure.
-----
As Saro continues to try to stabilize the heavily wounded man, he listens to Swann and Ian attempt to interrogate the other man. After a few moments, Saro rummages in his medkit, pauses for a moment, then turns back to his patient and begins to talk in a cold, clinical tone loud enough to be heard by everyone present in the room.
"Hmmm. I forgot I had that in there. Have you ever heard of Randoxyvil, Mr. Hellinic? It is a most interesting medical drug."
Swann looks confused at the Doc’s non sequitur and starts to interrupt him. "Doc, that’s great, but is this really . . . " He trails off as the Doc raises his voice slightly and keeps talking over him.
"Randoxyvil is generally used in cases of extreme clotting of the blood vessels. Too much clotting can lead to restriction of the blood vessels and possibly a stoppage of blood delivery. Randoxyvil counteracts the clotting agents, breaks up existing clots and allows for a normal bloodflow."
Without looking up from his patient, Saro continues. "Less well known is that when administered the drug leaves the patient in a very suggestible state for several hours."
Saro pauses to let that sink in for a minute before he continues. "There is one unfortunate side effect. When mistakenly administered to a patient who is not suffering from blood clots, the drug actually causes excessive bleeding, usually from the body’s main orifices: the rectum, mouth, and eyes. In some rare cases it actually causes the body to ‘weep’ blood through the pores of the skin itself. I’ve read that although not a terminal condition, it is distressingly painful, and can persist for several days.
"A very interesting little drug, don’t you think? Capable of both such relief and such discomfort. I keep discovering many such yin-yang parallels in my travels." Saro falls silent and continues to examine his patient.
Guderin’s eyes go a little wild as Saro talks about the drug, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Finally Ian says with a look of disgust, "Swann, go ahead and tie this one up as well. My trigger finger’s getting’ too itchy and his twitchin’ is making me nervous," although Ian shows no outward sign of being nervous.
Swann ties up Guderin. Then he says, "OK, Guderin. You and your friends — well, one of your friends — are going to live. Now, which cabin is Mark’s?"
Swann leaves Ian, Saro, and Vasilii to guard the prisoners while he starts searching the rest of the ship to make sure there is no one else aboard. He then starts a thorough search of all cabins, starting with Mark’s. He keeps a suit comm channel open to Ian and keeps up a running commentary of where he’s at and what he finds, just in case he encounters anyone or anything dangerous.
-----
Vasilii finishes his searches of the three other pirates. He finds a few credit chits (Cr479), a gold and silver ring, a couple of folding polymer knives, and a small plastic flimsy with "Nadine, 3829-3893-1183" written on it. The plastic flimsy was in Eric’s pocket. The ring was on Mark’s finger. It’s a pretty simple ring, more akin to a wedding band than anything else. Vasilii estimates the value at Cr800 or so. On the inside of the ring, the words, "Rachel, Orchid, Tea, Crepes" are inscribed. Vasilii replaces the ring on Mark’s finger. He also copies down the writing from the plastic flimsy before replacing it in Eric’s pocket.
-----
Saro has Mark stabilized for the moment. He is very severely injured, though, and may still die. Saro suspects that the man may last another few hours if he doesn’t have access to a real sickbay/autodoc. There’s just so much that Saro can do.
-----
On the Bray Keaven’s bridge, Vargas hits the scanners in order to see if he can spot the SNS Fallow’s Knife. He doesn’t spot the inbound naval ship yet.
-----
Outside the Bray Keaven, Martha swears as she inspects the damage to the comm system. After about 30 minutes of work, she is able to jury rig a bypass system that should hold pretty well for a while. Most of the external antenna and systems will need to be replaced, and she can't guarantee that the system will hold for long. Range is probably limited to about half of the undamaged system.
When she’s done, she re-opens her comm suit channels. "General comm systems are now back online. Before you get too excited, folks, it’s only got about half the range it would normally, and won’t hold for long, particularly with an atmospheric re–entry. But she’ll do until we can get her to a starport where I can make some real repairs. So, now I guess it’s time to start on the hull."
-----
Vargas makes another go at trying to spot the inbound SNS Fallow’s Knife. Taking his time this time, he manages to pick up the inbound ship at the outer reaches of the Bray Keaven’s sensors capabilities. Looks like the ship is coming in fast and decelerating hard. ETA should be about 35 minutes.
-----
Once Guderin is tied up, Ian strips off his vacc suit so that Saro can bandage his leg. Ian then inspects his vacc suit. It appears the suit’s auto–seal feature has patched up the penetration holes (front and back) fairly well. Just in case, Ian asks Guderin for a patch kit. Following Guderin’s directions, Ian finds a patch kit in the ship’s locker and proceeds to patch his suit. The patches don’t quite match the suit’s color, so the patches are slightly visible.
Ian will then open a comm channel directly to the Bray Keaven’s bridge. "Ian here, I trust your security problem has been dealt with? Has Mr. Silver been secured?"
-----
Vasilii also removes his vacc suit so Saro can bandage his wounds. He also patches his vacc suit. Afterward, Vasilii then goes to the Oser’s bridge to check on the systems. It appears that sensors are out, and the drive is damaged, but otherwise the ship is in decent shape. Accessing the computer database, there don’t appear to be any missing crewmembers.
-----
Swann searches the four passenger cabins, starting with Mark’s cabin while keeping a running commentary on the interesting items.
In Mark’s cabin, he finds a fairly high–end portacomp, a collection of five ID kits/cards with various names (including Hil Seirl), KCr23 in credit chits of varying denominations, and about 20 vid discs for serial romances (with titles such as "Passion in Jump Space" and "The Loves of Meng Dong").
Swann takes the portacomp so he can study the contents later. He takes the fake IDs to give to the authorities when they arrive. He opens his vacc suit and places the credit chits in the pockets of the jump suit he is wearing underneath. "That should start to cover the costs of the repairs to the Keaven," he tells Ian.
In what probably is Koolishu’s and the floater’s (who got blasted by Kevon) stateroom, Swann finds a truly interesting collection of, ahem, "toys," a combat shotgun, and 200 rounds for the shotgun. After chuckling over the "toys," Swann takes the shotgun and ammo.
The other two cabins yield mostly personal effects including some shirts in incredibly poor taste (subject matter in Guderin’s cabin, clashing colors in Eric’s cabin). Swann leaves things as is in these two cabins.
Returning to the lounge with his booty from the search, Swann sits down with the portacomp and begins trying to access any files/data bases it contains in the time he is waiting for the authorities. If he can gain access, he plans to download and save the files onto a storage device, and place it with the credit chits inside his clothing.
-----
Onboard the Bray Keaven, Kevon has a look at the security logs, trying to figure out how Aidan was able to move about the ship freely. It takes him about 15 minutes, but Kevon finally figures out that Aidan added himself to the crew roster. Kevon removes Aidan from the crew roster, but he isn't able to figure out how Aidan got onto the crew roster in the first place.
-----
Meanwhile, in the passenger lounge, Aidan starts planning how to modify the anti-hijack entry procedures to make it more difficult to do what he did initially. He gets halfway through planning before he finds himself locked out of the system again.
Over his suit comm, Aidan says, "Well gents, I see you’ve removed me from access. Given the rather scurrilous remarks about my parentage, I do think I should hold off on adding myself back in. Although this will prevent me from upgrading the anti-hijack routines and other security matters. On the other hand, I’d be happy to do some sleuthing in the Oser’s computer."
-----
"MISTER SILVER . . . , " Martha starts, anger rushing into her voice. She pauses for a moment, audibly calming herself. After a deep breath, she continues. "Mister Silver, you are not a member of this crew. Please do not act like one. Your money doesn’t give you that right, and you’ve yet to produce anything that justifies your right to do what you have already done, not even considering what you have just stated you are going to do. I’d hate to take this issue into legal actions, which would tie up your cargo for weeks until the matters are resolved. I’m sure your customers would not appreciate that, either."
-----
Ian slowly shakes his head and mutters to himself, "Guess that answers my question."
-----
Aidan replies. "Errrm, Martha, my apologies, I intended no harm to your ship. To all of the crew, please pardon my transgressions as the habit of someone who has operated on his own for too long. I am now withdrawing my connection to the computer and returning to my room to catch up on a bit of reading. If I may be of any service on the computers, which do need a few updates, or on your legal issues, on which I am an expert, please contact me. Note, I am anxious to show you the information I have on the cubes, but shall retire from the current incident unless needed."
-----
About 30 minutes after Martha started the repairs — and as she is about to start patching the hull — the bridge finally hears a hail on the emergency frequency. "Bray Keaven and Oser, please report status. This is SNS Fallow’s Knife, Lieutenant Phillips commanding. Cease all hostilities and reply, or we will assume that you are both hostile pirates. Power down all weapons immediately. ETA to boarding, 25 minutes."
Kevon casually taps the comm switch and responds automatically, "Fallow’s Knife, Bray Keaven. They ambushed us as we attempted to provide assistance, and we responded according to Section 617 of Imperial Code. Our main comms are out, but we have a temporary fix in place. The Oser has been secured. I’m powering down our turrets.
"Will you be docking with the Oser’s or our starboard airlock?"
-----
Martha listens to the comm chatter and the incoming signal from the SNS Fallow’s Knife as she continues to evaluate the damage done to the hull, and makes whatever repairs might be necessary to successfully make the jump to its next destination.
Vasilii, alone on the Oser’s bridge, takes a moment amid the quiet hum of the workstations and apparent calm on the ship to close his eyes and reflect on the situation and how it’s developed, mostly recalling the chatter over the suit comms.
Mark: "But I’m a business man, not a pirate. All I want is one of the cubes. We know that you still have two onboard. Tell your crew to bring one of the cubes to the airlock, and we’ll let you go after it's safely onboard and we’re away."
"Hmm, they knew we still had them," Vasilii thinks to himself, "probably courtesy of our blonde-haired friend. Damn, what was I thinking, bringing her aboard?"
Aidan: "I had not realized that anyone else of the legal persuasion was on shipboard. . . . In the meanwhile, please be informed that, according to Imperial statute IM3419.25 paragraph 34 that the crews of ships facing piratical activity are specifically exempted from liability, both individually and generally, . . . "
"What were the odds," Vasilii muses, "that he would happen to know that much about Imperial law?" He sighs in mild resignation.
Aidan: "Lady and gentlemen, after you’ve locked down the crew of the Oser, you may want to check the inspection numbers of those cubes. You can do that under blacklight. I’d be happy to show you the Imperial Warrant certifying the contents of the cubes. . . . "
" ‘The Imperial Warrant’?" Vasilii wonders to himself, opening his eyes and sitting upright. "No. Oh, no, no, no," he mutters under his breath, calmly shaking his head in exasperation as he mentally adds up the sum of Aidan’s actions up to this point.
He gets up, heads out the iris from the bridge and turns to speak to Ian, but stops himself as he looks at Guderin. He looks back at Ian and holds up a finger to suggest "hold on a minute," then turns and heads further into the lounge area.
-----
Ian gives Vasilii a questioning look, raises one eyebrow and watches him enter the lounge area, heading to where Swann and Saro are. He then drags Guderin to join the rest of the pirates and heads over to where the others are meeting.
-----
Vasilii sees Swann opening the portacomp to start accessing it and puts up a hand to suggest he hold on for a minute. "Wait. That could be considered evidence tampering."
Swann looks at him with a mischievous smile on his face. "No, it's evidence copying."
Vasilii then gestures to Saro to come join them for a private chat. Once they’re all together, he gestures for everyone to turn their comm mikes off, and then speaks in a low voice: "Guys, I just remembered the good mister Silver saying something in passing about having an ‘Imperial Warrant’ pertaining to those mystery boxes we’ve got stashed away. Color me rambunctious on this, but it would seem to me that the only folks who would have Imperial Warrants would be Imperial law enforcement officers. You don’t think there’s a chance he could be one, do you? I mean, annoying as he is, he does seem to know a good bit about Imperial law, so it would fit, especially if he could produce a badge along with that warrant.
"In either case, the thought also occurred to me that everyone else on the Keaven currently has their hands full, which leaves no one to keep an eye on him. After thinking about it, I think I’d rather have him over here where he can’t get at anyone else on our ship or at the computer. Or at those boxes."
Swann makes sure his suit comm is turned off, then says in a low voice, "I don’t think Silver is an Imperial law enforcement officer. I think he’s just an Imperial pain in the ass. I say let Kevon and Vargas baby-sit him — we’ve got enough to worry about over here as it is.
"If he were going to pull a badge, he would have done it already. I think we should just wait until after the authorities arrive and take care of the Oser and her crew. Then we can find out what Mr. Silver knows or thinks he knows about the boxes. If we need to, we can always space him in jump with the boxes," he says with a laugh.
-----
"Kevon," says Vargas on the bridge, "you think we ought to turn around and head back to Sentry for repairs, or shake the dust off of our boots and never come back? I mean, who knows how many potential enemies are back there, right?"
"For you folks, maybe," Kevon replies with a smile. "I’ll just hop on the next INS out of Sentry if I need to. But if the ship can manage through jump space in her condition, I say we continue on — even if it means putting up with Mr. Silver for a week."
"I’m going back to check and see that Silver makes it to his room. OK?" The former Scout gets up and, one hand resting on his holstered auto pistol, leaves the bridge.
"Don’t let him talk you to death," the lieutenant commander calls out as he continues to monitor the comms.
-----
Saro thinks for a moment on Vasilii’s and Swann’s comments.
"I think I have to agree with Mr. Hellinic on this one. It may be best to stay put for the moment. As much as I would like to get this man into the sickbay and for somebody to go sit with Mr. Silver, it seems all too much like the old Missionaries and Cannibals problem — and I never was any good at those problems.
"Help should be here soon, I think I can keep my patient hanging on that long and hopefully those aboard the Keavon can deal with the Aidan Problem. We definitely need to have a heart-to-heart with Mr. Silver when this is resolved, though.
"What do you think, Ian?"
"I agree. Let’s sit tight here and ride this out. I would like to think that Kevon and Vargas are talented enough to keep Mr. Silver reined in until the cavalry arrives. I, too, am curious how he knows so much about the boxes, and the fact that we even have them."
Saro keeps is voice low as he says, "Do we want to continue with my Randoxyvil ploy? I figure we’ve got one shot to try to get some info out of our friend in there before our help arrives. I’ve got an idea if you want to follow my lead. But if we don’t get anywhere, our bluff will be called. As much as I hope these vermin get spaced, I cannot allow myself to be party to any medical malfeasance."
Ian, with his voice lowered as well, says, "I don't think we’ll get any more info outta that piece of space trash," glancing at Guderin lying on the floor. "I think he was telling the truth about not knowing much. Never hurts to try, though," Ian ends with a grin.
Then a concerned look crosses his face, "By the way. What are we gonna tell the Imps when they arrive? If they find out that the pirates were after some contraband hidden on our ship — might not bode too well for us, ya think?"
Someone not connected with the story (which rules out you, me, and Flynn), could publicize the story on the Citizens of the Imperium boards. Usually helps to have someone else toot your horn for you.
Of course, some motion picture studios have tried that with "quotes" from fake reviewers and have gotten burned.
Habitual-Lurker, Burocrate, at your service, I visit the COTI boards daily and would be happy to drum-up some eyeballs for your excellent story hour. It would be the least I could do considering how much I have enjoyed reading about this crew and their adventures.
