Ngawai nods in appreciation at the clothes, which she wastes no time in throwing on. It's not the most dignified look, but they're clothes. She still can't put any weight on her leg simply because there's not enough of the joint yet to allow it, but whatever the frisbee is doing seems to be painless.
"How I feel depends on how you feel about paying me up front. Let's go incriminate my ex-boss." She limps for the mess hall door.
---
Davis, Luis, and the prisoner (wearing a classy get-up of what looks like a Michael Jackson "Thriller" jacket over a thigh-length pajama shirt and baggy kung-fu pants) appear on the catwalk. The woman makes heavy use of the catwalk handrail as she gimps her way down to the port boss.
"Mistress Ngawai," he addresses her with a smirk, "it seems the Masters favor another this day."
"Shove it, Leno," she replies. "Ask your damn questions."
"Just explain what happened. Why did you attack this hangar?"
"About... two hours earlier, Lady Malenko ordered a cargo of assemblers in the main traverse. This one" - she points at Semo - "says he fell asleep on the cargo loader. Either way, he survived the shuntway without a suit and showed up as the lady's Turai were preparing those charges. He grabbed one and made it out before we could kill him. Malenko ordered us to kill this crew and make sure we recovered the evidence. The fact that we could make a tidy profit off their corpses was just a bonus."
"And how did... this... happen?" Leno waves at the apocalyptic state of the hangar.
"It took time to prepare for our attack. Obviously, they were waiting for us. Had we a full Quad it might have ended differently, but Malenko is keeping the rest of her troops at her hangar, as befits the code."
"Ah, so you are still familiar with the peace? In the shadowports, the Imperium walks with softly, for they are no longer the law."
"And I'm hardly the Imperium."
"Semantics. You work for an Expansion official. You attacked a crew, and they defended themselves. What happens to you is up to them. What I still don't know is what Lady Malenko is doing with these demolitions charges?"
There it is. Moment of truth.
"She plans to destroy Jang-xur."
The boss looks at her like she just told him that Rambo uses Nerf arrows.
"Why? She is one of many officials who placate their vices here. Whatever it is, it can't be that ba-"
"Cannibalism and pedophilia."
"What she does with her property is not my concern," Leno coldly states.
"Someone on this station made it their concern, and that behavior is not welcomed in her social circles. Malenko doesn't know who the snitch is, so she... overreacted."
Leno mulls Ngawai's story around for a minute. "You are indeed, the only person who's not on this crew. Are they paying you to say what they want you to say?"
"No," she replies. Technically, that's the truth, Davis thinks.
"Have you been coerced in any way?"
"No." Her eyes don't waver as Leno stares her down.
The massive port boss paces a few moments before rendering his judgement:
"M3's ship and crew defended themselves. Their prisoner remains theirs. M3's crew will pay for repairs and cleanup to hangar M3, including the airlock door we had to destroy to gain entry." Leno consults his vox, which is clearly also some multi-widget, as he taps in some commands.
"3,500 lats for cleanup and repairs. Your ship remains on lockdown until such time as we are paid. Now, to proper business. We will search B91 and put Lady Malenko to interrogation. Is she going to come quietly?"
"Most likely not," Ngawai offers.
Leno barks into his vox. "Standby on B91. My team is enroute." He turns to leave, his men still standing firm, but he pauses. Leno turns to Hugh again. "I see an opportunity here. If you don't have the lats, you can work that debt off. You come with us, and IF Malenko starts something, and IF I don't lose any of my men in the process, I'll clear your debt."
On a completely tangential note, Max and One-Ton finally have their ship's airlock working. All that remains is patching the sensors into the CIC.
The murmurings of a full-scale assault on an Imperium ship filter through the bulkheads to One-Ton and Max.
"I don't about you, but I'm tired of getting my ass shot at...that and we're still dead in the water without the sensors talking to CIC. Let's get on that in the event we actually might need to leave at some point."
Davis slides over to Ngawai to help her stand up, but also so he can talk with her unnoticed. "If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to take her back inside so she can heal properly," he says to Leno.
"Thanks," Davis says, and helps her up the ramp into the ship. "That was pretty impressive back there. I'd ask what you did before you started guarding people like Malenko, but I think I wouldn't get a straight answer anyway." Davis smiles at her.
Once they get back to the mess hall, Davis helps her into a chair. "So, your reputation proceeds you. That will make it interesting when it comes time to get you on the assault team. Your money is currently with Hugh, who as you saw is currently busy making sure we don't wind up in hard vacuum. We do have the funds, however, and we're going to need your help when assaulting the ship. I'm sure you know about our current standing with the Imperium, it's why you were sent in here in the first place. We're going to need your help to wipe the ship's memory of our presence here. I'm sure Leno and his men are good at making things disappear, but the Imperium is everywhere, and things have a disturbing tendency to turn up when you least expect them to."
Ngawai smiles back at Davis but doesn't offer any answer as to her mysterious past.
"Well, Davis, makin' you disappear from Malenko's ship isn't that hard. All you gotta do is trash its local network." Her body language suggests that it actually isn't that big an undertaking. "But I'm going to need my money if you want me along for the ride. If I help you first, and if... Hugh... gets wasted during your little scheme, I'm out of luck."
Davis is beginning to read a little more into Ngawai's psyche. He's guessing that her absolute mercenary demeanor is a thin rationale for going against what are probably some (up until recently) very closely held loyalties in the name of survival.
Outside, Angel watches the negotiations and verdicts handed down from the large port boss. He's getting that feeling he got back in the desert when his unit was part of a joint strike with the so-called "indigenous forces". Total clusterfuck. Plus, there's the loss of Taylor, and Stanhill's making noises like he wants to stay behind for repairs.
On top of it all, Davis's penchant for handing out rifles to captured space amazons is worrying, to say the least. Still, Arketta turned out all right...
"That won't be an issue. As soon as the port authorities leave to get set up for the assault, you'll get your pay." Davis leans towards her. "You know, you don't have to do this if you don't want to. We'll still pay you for today since you helped us with Leno, but if you don't want to go into combat against people you used to work with and protect, that's fine. You can just tell us how to disable the ship's local network and stay here until we're out of trouble, then we can drop you off at our next stop. I and someone else will have to stay with you during the trip, and we can't have you wandering around the ship and hangar while we're out on the assault, but that's all."
He pauses for a second. "We're not monsters here, just in a bad spot with more than you could possibly imagine on the line, and you got caught up in all of this with us. So it's up to you if you want to join in the assault. I wouldn't want to cause you any more harm than I already have, and I won't let any more harm come to you while you're with us, I promise you that. So, what will it be?"
"So I either get tied up and sit on my ass - possibly forever if you get glassed, or I come with you and make sure your people don't fuck it up and leave witnesses who can ruin my steadily declining reputation. Not much of a choice. I assume you'll let me have my suit back, or am I fighting naked today?"
"I never said you'd be tied up, but yes, you can have your suit back. As for witnesses, it doesn't sound like Leno's men are particularly pleased with Malenko's choice of extracurricular activity. I doubt they'll take prisoners." He stands up. "Wait here, I'll go get your suit and some weapons for you."
"Get me what's left of Harlon's, too. I should be able to patch mine."
---
Leno addresses Hugh. "Time is of the essence. Are you playing or paying?"
---
Max and One-Ton are on the Morningstar's bridge at this point, opening up the holographic panels in order to access the cramped access shaft leading down into the sensor boom. Swims-the-Black has been taking it easy, sipping on some sort of thick sappy drink.
"BOY!" One-Ton bellows. "Get in that hole, we need you to cut some fiber and pass it up."
Davis leaves and returns with the two suits and a beam rifle and stinger, along with some ammo for both. He puts them on the table next to her. "Here you go. Need anything else?"
"Right," Leno says. "It's a ten minute walk, we'll move in 15." He turns and walks out of the hangar. His men, thankful to be out of the stench, quickly follow the port boss.
"Captain," Mellish interrupts. He's got the freshly captured Turai weapons laid out. "These aren't gonna work on the Turai in the hangar the way they are now. IFFs, sir. We can strip the IFFs but we won't be able to test 'em. That leaves us with the three blasters we brought with us."
"I'll get on it," Arketta offers.
"Your guns seemed to work on us just fine," Ngawai calls from the Morningstar's open airlock. She's wearing her suit with the cloak off, her knee armor patched with scraps from her partner's armor. The prisoner-turned-mercenary still has a bit of a limp, but she gets down the steps easy enough. "There'll be six of Malenko's Turai in full armor, though, as well as two drones. Plus about... a dozen crew, ranging from cooks and slaves to Imperium-trained pilots. They shouldn't be too much trouble. Their hangar's similar to this one, catwalks ringing the assault ship, airlock to the port side. As long as we don't stay in the airlock, the ship's anti-personnel weapons won't depress enough to hit us - if they even have them powered."
"They shouldn't," agrees Arketta. "They'd be locked down unless they wanted trouble with the port thugs from the get-go."
As soon as the station crew leaves, Hugh wordlessly pays Ngawai.
"I know that these things have a tendency to get 'forgotten' and 'postponed'", he explains as they move out. "Just so we're clear, we pay what we owe and the lats you get from us is exactly how far we trust you."
Admiral Duck Sauce
