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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1777450" data-attributes="member: 515">Ian draws his gauss pistol and points it toward the two men lying on the floor, resisting the urge to try and cut them in half with the weapon. With an open comm, Ian cracks a grin and says, "Only two pistols and a shotgun -- you boys can’t be serious!" Ian tries to discern which of the two on the floor is the more dangerous, thus more likely to pull the trigger. -----Saro stiffens in response to the firepower aimed in his direction. His face begins to flush in anger at the crew's violation of the distress call trust. He feels his fists tighten at his sides as he resists the urge to slap someone across the face, knowing that now is a bad time to make a wrong move. -----Never taking his eyes off the seated man, Swann asks, "Why don’t you tell us what this is about?" Swann attempts to read the man in front of him. -----Vasilii hears the shout of the man behind him, and jumps for the cover of the airlock. He spins around with his weapon drawn just in time to see the iris valve close on him. He turns to head for the trader only to see another sealed valve blocking his way. "Oh hell," he mutters and hurriedly makes sure his vacc suit is sealed. "Bridge, I’m locked in the scouts’ airlock but the others are in an unknown combat situation on board the Oser." Vasilii scans the control panel in the airlock, and starts fiddling with it to unlock and open the iris valve to the Bray Keaven.-----Aidan, not hearing back from the bridge, goes to the nearest workstation and smoothly accesses the system without tripping any obvious alarms. After entering the system, he attempts to add himself to the list of authorized crew and feels he has succeeded. Aidan heads downstairs, being casual about it rather than sneaky.-----In port engineering, Martha hasn’t been alerted to the floater behind the ship, so she turns her attention to the security systems. She sees that Aidan attempted to enter the lift initially, but the lift refused access. She assumes that the security system is functioning, so she begins sending data feeds to the incoming rescue vessel (SNS Fallow’s Knife). Over crew comms, Martha reports, "I’m sending the data feed back to the rescue vessels approaching, to be relayed back to the starport authorities. Our asses are now covered legally for dealing with these pirates." Martha doesn’t know who might be listening to the comms, but if anyone aboard the Oser is, she figures the more work the Bray Keavan gives them, the more they’ll have to do, and soon they’ll run out of crewmembers to deal with everything. Someone on the Oser is attempting to jam her, but she punches through the jamming efforts (for the moment) by modulating the carrier wave. -----"Yeah, this little ‘Radio Flyer’ is vapor," Kevon says as he quickly configures his controls to bring up the secondary gunnery controls for the port turret, gets the port laser swung around and takes aim at the floater. "It’ll take a couple of seconds to focus on him, but I only need to get within . . . a few . . . meters . . . of him . . . " Kevon fires off a snap shot just before the floater is about to pass out of the arc of fire. Viewscreens show a flash of light as the floater and his cargo are vaporized. "Reach out and touch someone," he muses, a mischievous grin growing slowly on his sturdy features. There seems to be a bit more of a flash than Kevon and Vargas would think, so they believe that the floater may have had an explosive of some sort. -----On the Oser, the tension stretches for a moment. Ian figures that the shotgun holder is more dangerous (both to Ian and Saro as well as his apparent comrade) and trains his gauss pistol on the man (Koolishu). Swann and Eric stare at each other across their respective snub pistols. Saro freezes and stares down the barrel of the magnum autopistol. After a moment, the man holding the magnum autopistol on Saro ("Mark") laughs and replies to Ian’s comment. "Two pistols and a shotgun at this range are more than enough if we wanted to kill you. But, I’m a businessman, 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." Now that the initial shock has passed, Ian and Saro can see that Mark is a rather pudgy–looking fellow in his 40s with a brown receding hairline who definitely looks more like an accountant — if not a businessman — than a pirate. Of course, he is still holding the magnum autopistol in a rock–steady grip in Saro’s face. -----When "Mark" mentions the cubes, Swann’s knees almost buckle from relief. But he maintains his aim on "Eric." When "Mark" finishes speaking, Swann starts laughing. A big, hearty, gut-shaking laugh. Tears come to his eyes. After he stops laughing, Swann says to "Mark" (without turning his head to face him), "You want the cubes? You concocted this elaborate charade just to get one of the cubes? I ought to shoot you just on general principles. What were you thinking? "If you know we have the cubes, they you probably know a little bit about us, enough to know that if you had just approached us directly yet discreetly, we could have come to an agreement with a lot less trouble and danger involved for everyone. "I’m a reasonable man. I’m willing to accommodate your request. But it’s not my decision to make. I need to confer with the rest of the crew. Excuse me." At this point, Swann checks to see if his comm is open, then tells the crew aboard the Bray Keaven what is going on. -----At the mention of the cubes, Saro’s face darkens some more. When Swann finishes saying his piece, Saro cannot hold himself back any longer. "The FECKING cubes?! You violate the sanctity of a Signal GK call for that?! You fecking pull weapons on us for them?!" Saro rages at the Oser’s crew before he turns towards his fellow crewmembers. "Didn’t I say we should just fecking space those fecking cubes?! Why doesn’t anyone listen to me? I tell you what, that fecking ship is going to be laid bare so we don’t have any more fecking surprises, if I have to tear out every fecking bolt and rivet myself!!" He finds himself standing, his muscles clenched tight, his whole body quivering in a combination of rage, fear, exhaustion, and indignation. -----Ian tries to calm the Doc a bit — and in the process, move him back away from the pistol toting "non–pirate." "Alright Doc, I understand your concerns," Ian says as he tries to place his free hand on Saro’s shoulder and guide him away from the pirates. "We have yet to have an opportunity to deal with the issue. Let’s keep focused on the situation at hand." Ian keeps his eyes on the shotgun guy (Koolishu) and the "non-pirate" (Mark), with the gauss pistol still trained on Mr. Shotgun.-----Vasilii listens to Saro’s tirade over the comm channel as he continues to try to get the outside airlock iris open. Just for a second, he’s glad that there's a locked door between him and the Doc. "Maybe we can trade the cube for information about exactly what they are and/or do?" He listens to whatever he can hear over the open channel while he continues to work. -----Martha clears her throat. "Gentlemen, could this man be the one that tried to use our ship to smuggle contraband by secreting it aboard without our knowledge? Our data feed is being sent to the authorities right now, and I’d love for them to hear his confession." The young engineer prays silently to St. Elvis as she hopes to salvage something for the crew from this bizarre situation that "Mark" has forced upon the Bray Keavan. -----Grimly satisfied with the success of his shot, Kevon turns the port turret to where it will do the most harm to the Oser. He takes careful aim at the scout’s forward section, as close to the bridge as possible. His thumb hovers over the trigger, ready to let loose the first volley, when he hears Swann’s proposal. Quickly pulling back, Kevon turns and asks Vargas, "What cubes?"</blockquote>

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