"Good," Davis says. "We fill that the protein sludge that's all over the deck or something equally dense that actually smells like an explosive like oil or something, seal it up tight, and slap a small C4 charge on the side for our bomb. That'll be part of our evidence. Semo, you were slacking off and fell asleep on the crates. One-Ton accidentally sent you through the shuntway, and you woke up in the Turai construction ship's hangar. You overheard them talking about 'The madam not wanting to leave any evidence of her...discretionary purchases this time,' and saw them preparing a large quantity of explosives. You swiped one of them as evidence, and before we could send a transmission, they came down on us. Any questions on what happened before I get our last piece of evidence from our prisoner?"
"They sneak-attacked and we totally demolished them. I wanna see 'This shouldn't have worked' faces, people. Alternate between abject shock and loud bragging..." - another look around - "...eh, act natural, then."
"Okay then, I'm taking our new friend inside. If it's not too much trouble, I could use the bodies of the other cloaked Turai and maybe one or two others inside as well. Captain Verrill, I'm sure you can run the show while I get our confession out of the prisoner." Davis grabs the unconscious woman and drags her inside.
Everyone jumps into action. Davis, his captive slung over his shoulders, trods his way up the catwalk, into the ship, and into the mess. Mellish and Semo tote their share of corpses into the Morningstar's food area, including the one-armed mangled corpse of the male cloaker.
Meanwhile, Luis works on a detonator and small charge for the false bomb. He also packs the hydraulic sleeve tightly with a mixture of some lubricant and dense gloopy slop (about the same neutron-star density as a Powerbar) from the autochef. A quick weld and Arketta pronounces the mockup "fairly convincing". Best of all, it'll still explode - it's not like Stanhill used fake C-4 for the small charge. He figures it'll horribly wound anyone within, oh, 5 feet, and someone could end up with the entire sleeve, which would probably prove lethal.
The mess hall is quiet, the power tool whines of Max and One-Ton's frantic work muffled by the hull. Other than Swims-the-Black, who is sequestered in the CIC, Davis is alone with his naked, unconscious Turai with the pulverized, bleeding kneecap.
Through all the commotion, Max keeps working. One-Ton rejoins him and in the five minutes or so it takes for the team's subterfuge to get underway, they manage to affix the Morningstar's new airlock door. It still needs to be slaved to the ship's systems, checked for leaks, synched with the inner door, and it could use a coat of paint to match the rest of the hull. Even with skipping the paint, Max figures another ten minutes - and then they can get inside and patch the new sensor boom back into the bridge controls. The bridge'll have to be offline - and the ship secured in its berth - for another 15 minutes at least.
The captain's comment draws a guffaw from Semo, after which he sets to work. Hauling the mangled corpses onto the ship isn't pretty, but he's no stranger to ugly.
He'll try to make sure that he's relaxing on a crate in the bay by time the investigation team arrives.
Ngawai snaps to - at least it feels like it. Her heart's pounding in her chest, but she still feels groggy. Her knee... the pain's enough that she doesn't realize she's restrained until she tries to grasp her ruined joint. Some kind of polymer cuff, no locking mechanism. Gotta find a way to get her hands in front... wait, are the lights out? She's in a sack, or body bag, or blanket. Hard to tell. Too dark. She's naked, and with that realization comes just a hint of animal panic that's quickly subdued by her training.
Davis watches the captive wriggle a bit a few seconds after he injects the automedic's stimulant, his NVGs casting everything in shades of green. She hasn't even discovered her teammate beside her yet. Her dead comrades sit propped up in the mess hall furniture, like a grotesque game of musical chairs.
"Who- who's there?" the woman calls.
Outside, the hangar door glyphs flash an angry amber as the shadowport "authorities" arrive on scene. There's a sharp knocking as one of them raps on the door with a weapon or tool. A moment later, the vox blares.
"Shh," Davis says, keeping an edge of fear in his voice. "They'll hear you. They've got us held captive in their ship somewhere. Two of the soldiers are bound to chairs over here and your friend is under the blanket with you. You were both badly hurt in the battle." Davis pauses for a second. "They will come to interrogate you soon. They keep on asking about explosives and destroying this station. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
"No," she whispers, almost an afterthought. She prods the still form next to her with her good leg, hissing "Harlon!" as loudly as she dares, which isn't very loud at all. A few more tries without a response from the dead Harlon and she whispers to Davis, "Who are you then? Only ones I didn't see flatline were Harlon, Geens, and Vandya. You're sure as shit not her, and Geens still has a Hedian accent."
"These bastards bombed the shit out of the airlock, it's busted up pretty good right now. We'll fix it in a bit, but we need to run a check on our ship first. Wouldn't do to find out that it's leaky all of a sudden."
"Name's Ramzi. They grabbed me back on Botane and I've been locked in here ever since. Wake your friend up, we might need him." Davis paces around a bit, adding a limp to his walking. "The bastard cut my fucking toe off when I didn't tell him about the explosives. Something about covering up her children purchasing habit and blowing this station to pieces."
The woman prods her dead friend some more. "Harlon," she says, no longer whispering. "Come on, wake the hell u-" Her foot squelches into gore.
"Master's taint," she swears. "All right, Ramzi... I don't know what explosives you're talking about, but I need you to see if you can get these cuffs off of me. We need to be ready for when my people come back."
"Right," Davis says, and rolls her over on top of her dead partner. "Let me just hit the lights so we can both see what's going on here." He flicks the lights on.
"Hey!" she shouts as she gets rolled onto the corpse. Then Davis toggles the lights.
She sees her airburst-chewed friend and reflexively pushes up and away with her legs, forgetting her left leg doesn't work. Her scream actually rings Davis' ears. The Turai slumps heavily half-off, half-onto Harlon's body, her left shoulder scraping against ribs that look like a hungry Texan found a BBQ buffet. She's breathing hard, teeth grinding in pain, only half-conscious.
Davis takes off the NVGs and walks over to the now gore-covered Ngawai and roughly rolls her over. "So, about those explosives. We know you have them, we know what you're planning to do with them. Just tell us where they are, and I'll let you go." He slaps her a few times to wake her back up. "Come on, just tell me what I want to know."
Ngawai seems to recognize Davis through the pain. "The Whiirr..." Then the slaps knock her around, and she spits back at Davis, "If I had any explosives, I'd shove 'em up your ass."
Davis ignores the insult. "Good," he says, and lifts her up from behind, placing her on a chair, "you recognize me from before. That saves me the time of introducing myself." He kneels to the side of her and zip ties her feet together as well, making sure to torque the leg with the blown-out knee, then sits down on another chair in front of her. "Actually, where are my manners? Name's Davis, pleased to meet you." He smiles and offers his hand to shake, and then takes it back after a few seconds. "Now, back to those explosives. Just tell us where they are, and we'll let you go. I mean, it's not like your friends will be looking for you, they're all dead. And the woman you were protecting can't admit she was here, so my guess is she's already up and gone." Davis smiles, putting a sinister edge on it this time. "Face it, you're alone here now. Abandoned. It's just you, me, and all of your friends." He motions to the assembled bodies around them. "Well, what's left of them. What do you say? Tell me about the explosives, and I'll let you go."
punkey
