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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1819613" data-attributes="member: 515">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.</blockquote>

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