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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowdancer" data-source="post: 1843941" data-attributes="member: 515">While Swann and Ian are giving their depositions, the corpsman comments, "Lt. Darlow, sir? These two fellows are out cold, and this man is severely injured. I’d like to get him back to the Knife immediately." Darlow nods, and the corpsman heads back to the ship’s boat to retrieve a grav stretcher. With a Marine’s help, he loads the man onboard the stretcher, and takes Mark to the ship’s boat. A Marine drags Eric and a moment later, another Marine comes to drag Guderin off. Swann gives Lt. Darlow his deposition: "We received a Signal GK from the Oser. They said they had some sort of fire in the engine room and that some of their crew was injured. We responded, since we were the only ship close by, and docked with them. "I was part of a four-person response team that went onboard the Oser, along with Ian, our security officer; Doc Saro, the ship’s doctor; and Vasilii, our cargo officer. "As soon as the air lock opened, we saw one of the Oser’s crew, who directed us to the lounge where three men were lying down or sitting. He said the other men were badly injured. He then went back onto the bridge, saying he had to keep sending out the distress signal, which I thought was odd. I also noticed that the smoke in the air didn’t smell like what you would expect from an engine fire. Something about it just wasn’t right. The whole situation was starting to make me feel uncomfortable. I’ve heard stories of pirates and hijackers who pose as a ship in distress, then jump the responding ship’s crew when they come aboard. I was starting to wonder if that was what was happening here. "Well, I told Vasilii to wait by the airlock, just as a precaution, in case someone from the Oser tried to get aboard the Bray Keaven while we were distracted. Then the rest of us went into the lounge to check on the injured crewmen. All of a sudden, the three men pulled out weapons that they had been hiding. Two had pistols, and the other had a shotgun. Also, the guy on the bridge had locked down all the iris valves, trapping Vasilii inside the airlock. "So we were all standing there, staring at each other for a second, then one of the men told us if we turned over our cargo to them, we wouldn’t get hurt. I radioed our bridge on my vacc suit’s comm channel and told them what was going on. Our bridge crew decided to try to fire on the Oser with one of our laser turrets. So I pretended that we were going to comply with their demand to turn over our cargo, so the Oser’s crew wouldn’t get suspicious. "When our ship fired, it caught the Oser’s crew off guard. And it shook the ship pretty violently. While they were distracted, I took the opportunity to shoot one of them with my snub pistol. My tranq rounds put him right out. Ian also started shooting with his pistol, and took out the man with the shotgun. Then Ian and I both started firing at the remaining crewman. He seemed to be the leader; he was the one who had done all of the talking. Anyway, he wounded Ian before we were able to put him down. I guess we were lucky none of us were seriously injured. "After that, we told the guy on the bridge to surrender, and he did. Doc started checking on the injured while I rounded up weapons. Then I went on the bridge to power down the Oser’s turret, and to try to get Vasilii out of the airlock. After I got him out, we restrained the Oser’s crew and checked them for additional weapons. Then I made a quick check of the cabins to make sure there wasn’t anyone else on board, and to see if there were any more weapons. I found a shotgun in one cabin. In another cabin I found several IDs, all with the same picture — the guy I think is the leader — but with different names on each one. I brought those into the lounge, along with a laptop computer I found in the same cabin. "Then we just waited until you guys showed up." The affable Lt. Darlow listens to Swann’s and Ian’s description of what occurred. After Swann’s deposition, he looks a little puzzled and comments, "It seems that they undertook quite a risk just to get at a part of your cargo, particularly since their cargo hold seems about half full already. Were they looking for something specific in your cargo?" "I thought their choice of ship was a little limiting, too," Swann says. "But they were pointing guns at us at the time, so I wasn’t going to debate it with him. The one man said they wanted some of the boxes we were carrying. I assumed he was talking about the cargo containers." For a brief moment, the Sentry Navy lieutenant looks fairly skeptical at Swann’s tap dancing around the issue of "boxes." Vasilii clears his throat and says, "Um, well, if I may, sir, I had a chance to think about that while we were waiting for you to arrive. I make my living buying and selling cargoes for the Bray Keaven, and while it IS deplorable, there are certain economic realities about piracy. I mean, that’s why some people do it. "What I mean is, I’m sure you can appreciate the economics of selling higher–tech goods from here to pretty much everywhere else in the Linkworlds. But look around you; they’re operating from the perfect pirate ship, at least to start with. The Scout Service handles all their repairs, maintenance, and even fuel. They have no operating costs! "And if you throw into the mix that they stole those higher-tech goods they’re looking to sell, and didn’t pay anything to get them, so everything they sell them for is pure profit, well . . . even if they don’t have much cargo space, it wouldn’t take much cargo to turn a pretty crisp credit working out of a ship like this. "Of course, ALL of this assumes that the cargo was what they were really after in the first place. They may have just been using that as a ploy to get aboard our ship to ‘look over’ our cargo, then either kill all of the crew or just dump us overboard to leave us with their ship, and then take off with ours, with our cargo," Vasilii concludes with a shrug. After Vasilii adds his explanation, the lieutenant seems ready to drop the issue of what the Oser’s crew was after. The Vilani merchant continues. "My name is Vasilii Kugiikishshi, sir. I’m the ship’s cargo broker and usually the navigator. I’m afraid my take on the activities here on the Oser is somewhat limited. My perspective, as Swann has pointed out, is largely from the point of view of the airlock, which was closed and locked during most of the action. "However, shortly before we lifted off from Sentry, we were contacted by a Mister Hil Seirl, or so he called himself, to purchase a passage for himself and a ton of cargo, an offer we had opted to decline based on the particulars he had outlined with regards to picking up his cargo, which involved us making a rendezvous with another craft near the jump point and transferring the cargo to our ship before going to jump. "The arrangement was a highly unusual one and left us feeling rather suspicious of the whole affair, and thus we declined his offer. As I recall, when I met with him to inform him of our decision, he had inquired in passing as to whether we would be leaving shortly, to which I responded that we weren't sure exactly when we would be leaving. He politely thanked me for our consideration and left. "After that, we lifted off, and everything was fine. We were approaching the jump point when we got their fictional distress call, and changed course to meet up with them. The group of us came on board, and I stood watch at the airlock over here to make sure no one snuck aboard the Keaven while they dealt with the casualties who were in the lounge. I should have gone with them, I would have recognized the man calling himself Hil Seirl immediately; he was the man your corpsman took back to your ship a few minutes ago. "But as it was, one of them yelled ‘freeze!,’ which caught me off guard, so I jumped into the airlock figuring to use the side of the iris valve for some kind of cover, just before all the iris valves closed and locked behind me, leaving me stuck in there. "So about the time I heard gunfire over the comms from inside the ship, I’m getting up close and personal with a laser in our weapon turret closest to the Oser just outside the airlock. One of the shots grazed the bulkhead and sent some fragments flying, managed to dodge most of them," he says, showing the Lieutenant the patch in his suit. "I took out the cameras in the airlock to keep them from seeing how bad off I was, so they wouldn’t get any bright ideas about threatening to space me in my damaged suit to get the upper hand in here. "Well, by the time they got me out of the airlock, the shooting was over and the guy on the bridge had surrendered. Saro patched up me, I patched up my suit, Swann did a quick sweep of the staterooms to secure the common area, and then we all waited for you gentlemen. I figured you might want a quick look inside before you got here, so I set up the vid feeds while we were waiting. And that’s about it." After Vasilii’s deposition, the lieutenant then turns to Saro and asks, "And you, sir? Your name and your perspective of what happened?" "Lieutenant. I am Saro Talbek, MD, ship’s doctor aboard the Bray Keaven. I’ll be glad to tell you what I saw. Anything I can do to ensure these vermin get spaced is my pleasure. "We, the Bray Keaven that is, were heading out to the jump point when we received a distress call from the Oser. Determining that we were the closest vessel that could respond, we made contact with them and were told that there had been an explosion aboard and that a number of crewmembers were badly injured. "I grabbed my medkit as we approached the Oser and when we docked with them myself, Ian, Swann and Vasilii boarded the ship. One man greeted us and showed us two people on the deck moaning and groaning, both of them covered by a blanket or tarp. Another man was sitting in the room, claiming to be injured but not seriously. As I knelt down to check on the ‘injured,’ our guide slipped out of the room. When I started to remove the covering to get a better look, the men all whipped out weapons. One pulled a shotgun and the others had autopistols, one was pointed directly into my face. Then the airlock was closed, trapping Vasilii inside it. "There were some tense words and threats from the Oser’s crew demanding that we surrender some of our cargo to them. Then the Oser suddenly shook, which turned out to be the Bray Keaven firing upon the Oser, whose guns were turning to aim at the Keaven. In the jolt, Ian and Swann managed to fire upon the Oser’s crew and we gained the upper hand. "One of the Oser’s crew was killed outright and one seriously injured. One was knocked out with tranq rounds without damage. I managed to stabilize the injured man and then tend to the injuries on our side. While I was tending to the injuries, Swann went around the rest of the Oser and brought back the guide who had left the room earlier. "In order to ensure that there would be no further trouble until you arrived, I treated the Oser’s crew with a mild sedative which should wear off shortly. "I hope that you come to the conclusion that these ‘men’ deserve nothing less than the direct application of cold hard vacuum. Preying on the good will of others and perverting the time-honored Signal GK — pah, they disgust me." After Saro’s deposition, one of the Marines comments, "Yeah, there’s lots of creative things that we could do to these fellows. I’ve had to clean up after pirates before, and spacing them would be a mercy compared to what I’ve seen pirates do." Lieutenant Darlow replies, "Sergeant, thank you. As tempting as that may be, and as much as I might agree with Dr. Talbek, we both know that there are laws that we must follow, even with what most obviously seem like pirates to us."</blockquote>

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