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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1385222" data-attributes="member: 515">While Vasilii is doing his research, Swann keeps the starboard laser firmly targeted on the cutter. Vasilii finally remembers to switch the computer targeting for the port laser to the slow boat after he finishes his research and then prepares to attempt sensor jamming. The slow boat and cutter are both well within the Bray Keaven’s weapon range already. The cutter is at 6 thousand kilometers and closing slowly, the slow boat is at 7k and closing. The Keaven’s lasers actually have a much further range than its sensors can see — about 15k. Swann watches the range click down and again asks, "Captain? At what range do you want me to fire off that warning shot?" -----Before Argent can answer, the slow boat comms the Keaven again: "Merchant ship? What do you mean by fishing? Would you be willing to provide detailed information on how to produce the antivirals ourselves? If so, could we purchase that information from you and maybe four courses of the antivirals for our Illustrious Leader and his family? We could give you the 20 million Lingonsallers that we have onboard in trade. What do you say?" Argent feels he has a fairly wide latitude in dealing with the locals. Giving some courses of antivirals would probably raise a few eyebrows, but could be considered fair given the situation. That doesn’t mean that the Imperial Marines wouldn’t pay Lingsdonland a later visit for trying to impede a vessel under Imperial charter, but the crew probably wouldn’t be reprimanded. Giving basic information in a publicly available reference would be fine for medicine; giving weapons related information wouldn’t be. -----Saro collects his information and prepares a data packet. The data packet doesn’t contain detailed information on how to prepare the antivirals, but it would give an Imperial–grade facility a good start on how to create the antivirals. Whether or not a tech 6-8 facility could produce the antivirals is another matter. -----Martha chimes in on the discussion. "Captain, a data packet isn’t going to help them without the proper facilities to produce those drugs. They don’t even have the capacity to safely induce cold sleep; I’m certain that they won’t be able to understand, much less produce or mass produce, any of the antivirals. I don't know anything about medicine, but I do know interior biosensors for anti-hijacking programs. You can’t get anything decent on a molecular level for sensors below TL10 or so." She pauses, then adds, "Sharing that info, whether we get creds out of it or not, will have another affect, though. It’ll create a market, legit or not, for advanced medical tech that’ll be needed to produce these drugs. Something to think about." -----"Well, we don’t really know what facilities they have, although I agree that probably they can’t produce the antivirals," Saro says. "The information in the data packet is publicly available if you know where to look. With their isolationist stance, Lingsdonland probably doesn’t have access to it, though. It is certainly not a pharmacological recipe, although a talented pharmacologist will know what to do with it. "I do not believe it’s worth money, and my intention was to provide information on the drugs that they need so that then they can either produce them, however unlikely, or trade for them, in a legal and transparent way. At least it would look like these sods accomplished something, although we have no real indication that they are going to be executed if they do not. Perhaps I’m just a backwater surgeon, but I do not know how easy it would be to find a space faring crew in Lingsdonland. I’ll go along with whatever is decided, though." -----Swann keys the internal comm again. "Could someone please ask our impending business partners to change course so I won’t have to shoot them again." -----Ian says over the comm to Argent, "Whatever you decide, just make sure we choose the method of delivery and which ship if any comes close to us to do it. One or all of them are going to have a boarding party onboard." -----Seeming to come to a snap decision, Argent flips the external comms switch. "Slow boat captain. First, you have 30 seconds to order your cutter to break off immediately, or else all you’ll be getting is a fast trip to oblivion," he says. "Once your cutter is away, we will dock with you and deliver the four courses and the information we have for 20 million lingonsallers. Do we have a deal?" -----Vasilii looks down at his sensor screens with the faintest smile on his face. "Let's see," he muses, "even if Lingonsallers are 20:1 against Bromlian pounds, that will be 1 million pounds. Those pounds are going at 10 to one Imperial credit, so we should clear 100k credits at a minimum. Now, if those Lingsdonlubbers don't try to play stupid we can all make a profit." Vargas' face quirks into a smile. "I love it when a humanitarian mission turns a profit." Vasilii watches his sensors, willing the cutter to move off and double-checking that the second cutter is still without power. He sets up a scan of the ship's boat to check for high-energy sources such as weapons packs, waiting for the situation to relax a little bit. Reaching over, Vasilii makes sure that the computer has the ship’s boat as the selected target, then waits for the Captain’s orders. -----Muting the external comms, Argent switches to internals. "Saro, load that data packet onto a cube and ready four courses for transfer. Swann, they have 15 seconds to move that cutter. Blast it if it doesn’t break off entirely." -----Saro, who is furiously trying to put together some notes to further help the Lingsdonlanders, sighs deeply and speaks into the internal comm: "Captain. I’ll do as you ask." He tries to finish as much as possible from the pharmacological protocol and then transfer it into a data cube, along with the data from the Imperial Drug Registry. Then he makes his way to the cargo deck to retrieve four adult doses of the three antivirals.</blockquote>

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