NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1673900" data-attributes="member: 515">Chapter VDate: 165-993Location: Bray Keaven's berth, Sentry Downport Saro heads out early to go grab a bite to eat and then play at an open mic night or two. He is pretty successful at the clubs, and he receives an invitation to play at another club, the Moriel, the following night for Cr200. As such, he misses the scheduled meeting with the mystery blonde. Kevon decides the concourse is a little too obvious a place to stand watch. Instead, he retrieves his shotgun and plants himself in the scaffolding inside the berth. Vargas takes up position on the Bray Keaven’s bridge, keeping an eye on the external monitors. Martha remains in port engineering, ready to monitor the internal sensors. -----Precisely at 1800 hours, the berth door comm chimes inside the Bray Keaven. From the vid pickup, Ian, Vargas, and Vasilii can see the striking blonde, now wearing deep maroon. Her eyes seem to sparkle a bit when she announces, "Good evening. I am here to continue our discussion, Mr. Kugiikishshi." There doesn’t appear to be anyone else within vid pickup range. Ian goes to escort the blonde in. When he arrives at the berth door, he checks the vid pickup again, and again sees only the blonde. The door wisks open, and the blonde smiles at Ian and enters. A quick glance to the concourse only reveals normal light traffic. After closing the door, Ian announces that he is going to search the blonde for weapons. The blonde smiles, and says, "Of course, but I do hope that you’ll be a gentleman about it. I’ve a boyfriend who can get a little irrational once he gets jealous." Ian conducts a very thorough search of the blonde. She noticeably stiffens when Ian’s hand explores private regions in his search for weapons, but makes no reaction. Ian finds no weapons or devices/equipment. Just as Ian completes his search, the blonde asks, "So, do I pass inspection?" When Ian says yes, the blonde quickly moves in close, and before he can react, the blonde’s right hand grabs Ian’s crotch. Squeezing far harder than her delicate hands would seem to be cable of, the blonde whispers, "Good. You don’t pass mine. I asked you to be a gentleman. Don’t try that again." The blonde then abruptly releases her viselike grip, steps a bit away, and then brightly says, "So, shall we continue?" Staggering and cursing a bit, Ian leads on. -----From his perch on the scaffolding, Kevon is momentarily alarmed, but quickly deduces what just happened. On the bridge, Vargas’ grimace takes over his entire face for a moment. "Ooooh. That’s gonna leave a mark." -----Ian escorts the blonde onboard ship. Vasilii is waiting just inside the airlock. The blonde smiles at Vasilii and says, "So, Mr. Kugiikishshi. Shall we continue our business?" "Welcome to the Bray Keaven, Miss. If you would be so kind as to follow me." With that, he turns and heads up to the crew lounge area. He and Ian escort the blonde to the lounge. -----"Keaven, Holland. Someone please give me a heads up before the lady is escorted off the ship." "Will do, Ian out." -----As soon as the lift starts toward the upper deck, Swann calls Kevon on his communicator. "Holland, this is Hellinic. I’m going to exit the starship. Please refrain from shooting me." Swann exits to take up another position covering the berth entry doors and the starboard airlock. His position is behind more scaffolding, but on the ground, pretty close to from where Kevon is watching. So far, neither of the outside watchers nor Vargas see anything of note. As he settles down to wait, Swann cradles his shotgun in one arm, rubs a hand across his face, and mutters to himself, "Now, let’s see what we can see." -----When the blonde is seated in the lounge, Vasilii offers her a drink and continues. "Well Miss, we seem to have a quandary here. These plants that you desire are quite dangerous to all parties. While we only inherited these plants, I don’t think that your offer of Cr10,000 is very equitable. "I propose more along the lines of Cr10,000 per plant, to include any ‘residue’ that the plants have produced that we have. Transfer should be off-planet, but your vessel should not be more than 100 dTons in size." Clapping her hands together, the blonde exclaims, "Ah, such the proper Vilani merchant. But we could have discussed this at the Long Shadows Falling! Forty thousand credits for the plants plus any residue is acceptable. "As far as the ship is concerned, I only have one available to me, and it’s a 200 dTon far trader. We’ll follow you off planet until we’re about 30 or so planetary diameters away, and then we’ll make the exchange. Our ship is the Offkey. "So, do we have a deal?" Vasilii’s eyes reveal the fact that he expected a more heated exchange. His face stiffens just a shade as he tries to work out whether he just lost a bigger profit. "Agreed. But the delivery method is not negotiable. Charter a boat if you have to, but we reserve the right to jump out if the exchange isn’t as we request." -----As negotiations continue in the lounge, the comm on the bridge buzzes for attention. Martha, in engineering, notes the indicator that the ship is receiving an incoming comm. Turning briefly from the security monitors, she pulls up the ident code of the incoming comm before she decides whether or not to route it to the message queue. Since it doesn’t appear to be for her, she decides to let the computer route it to the queue. Ian glances at the comm, notices that it is an external call, and turns his attention back to the conversation. He assumes Vargas will answer it from the bridge. Vargas triggers the external comm line. "You’ve reached the Bray Keaven, how may I direct your call?" "Greetings! This is Aidan Silver. I’m coming over to your ship to present my proposal in person. Are you ready to receive visitors?" "Your pardon Mr. Silver, but which one of our representatives was assisting you?" "I sent a letter earlier to the ship to a Mr. Vasilii Kugiikishshi inquiring about the possibility of arranging transport for some cargo. I think you’ll find my terms quite profitable. I have a recipient who is eager to get his goods. "I’m on my way to visit, I trust that this will not be an inconvenient time?" "Ah, very good Sir. If you’ll please hold the line I will inquire as to Mr. Kugiikishshi’s schedule." He puts Silver on hold and hits the ship–wide intercom. In a calm, placid voice he says, "Mr. Kugiikishshi, you have an incoming call. Please pick up."</blockquote>

Verification