"Panipon? Ha, we're doing you a favor," the male Kansatai says.

"Crack it open," the woman tells Taylor. The SFC cranks off the top of the crate.

"These aren't pantaki", the woman says. "Explain."

Luis leaves the explaining to Hugh and the CIA goon. His response is to tighten his grip on his SMG and ready it as much as he can without clearly showing the preparations to the two Kansatai.

Semo moves to help Taylor with the crate. This just happens to get him within gutting range with the alien sword. Seems a better choice than doing a lot of shooting, as it will attract a lot less attention.

Even Max sees a bad situation in the making, flipping the safety strap off his Colt's holster.

Luis tenses up without drawing too much attention, but Semo and Max's shift in demeanor send warning signs to the Kansatai. The female moves a hand down to her longarm's receiver in response.

"Everyone just relax," the male says. "You can act like a box full of spinks and we can call two skimmers down here and we can get you pacified, or you can be cool. Now my partner asked you a question."

"Hey, hey, there's no need to get anxious," Davis says, looking at both the Kansatai and the team. "Let me take a moment and calm them down, then we can get down to business. You know how jumpy the muscle can get in these delicate situations." He looks at Arketta. "*Private, what the hell do they think these things are?*" he says, but in with a cadence and tone that sounds like he's scolding them.

*Pantaki are Turai sliverguns... or 'stingers',* Arketta answers.

Davis turns back to the woman. "Well, that's taken care of. As for the cargo, these are prototypes for a new pantaki power format. They're deactivated right now, you can scan them. I'll be happy to show you one."

"All right, scan it," the woman tells the male. He pulls out a wand from his equipment belt and holds it vaguely in the direction of the crate. When what he's expecting to see doesn't come up, he passes the wand directly over the crate.

"They don't read at all," he says.

"Keep the scanner active," the female replies before turning to Davis. "Please, continue."

"And they won't show up at all. These things are so new that no one outside of the people who developed it know it even exists." Davis smiles again. "And us, obviously."

He reaches into the box and pulls out a pistol. "Now, these are just the firing mechanisms. The energy cells were transported earlier." He ejects the clip. "These are individual tracking mechanisms, very sophisticated. They were specially designed for this project. When you activate them, they arm and any attempt to fire the weapon results in it self-destructing." He puts the clip back in and racks the slide. "See? The self-destruct mechanism is now armed. If I were to pull the trigger now, it would melt down the internals of the weapon and it would be useless. Very good if someone like us were to try to steal the prototypes. Unfortunately, they forgot to activate the mechanisms before transport. Here, let me show this one to your partner over there. *Angel, catch.*"

He tosses the gun in his hand to Angel. "*If necessary, execute him on Go, but stay cool.*" Davis pulls another gun out of the box and loads it. "Any other questions before we talk business?"

"What's the catch? The manufact have their men out looking for these things? Remote shutdown switch so you can slag 'em after we deal? I'll tell you now, that way lies the skimmers and the pacification. Otherwise, yeah, I think we can deal. We can give you 10,000 now for the crate, plus back-code those permits."

Angel catches the toss and nods, doing his best to impersonate competent but otherwise unimaginative muscle.

"*Sure Boss*"

"No catch, what you see is what you get. But there's a problem with selling you the whole load. See, we've already promised most of this load to Panipon, so unless you're willing to match his 20,000 offer and throw in those permits for causing us the trouble of burning our contact, I can't see us making that deal. How many units would you take for just the permits and payment for your troubles?"

"I don't think you understand the trouble this many permits can be. If you just want the permits, we can still deal - and we'll leave you half the weapons. You can sell the rest to Panipon for 10,000."

Davis smiles like that's just what he wanted to hear. "That's great news, I love it." He walks right up to her. "Let's go outside and talk about this, hm?" He then quickly turns to Angel. "*GO!*"

Davis sticks the pistol underneath the woman's chin or whatever exposed surface is on her head that allows for a shot at the brain and pulls the trigger.

Davis and Riviera fire their weapons within a half-second of each other, the silenced weapons making a *ka-klick* as their slides snap back in unison.

The Kansatai wear open-faced helmets - psychologically speaking, seeing the face of an authority figure is less distubing than a face shield, balaclava, or mirror-chrome Turai helmet. The female regrets the Kansat armor design choices for the briefest of moments, getting out a "Wai-" before Davis's shot bursts through the woman's face. Davis' head and upper torso are sprayed with crimson flecks.

The male Kansatai reflexively goes for Davis. His sudden movement spoils Angel's would-be killshot - instead, the subsonic 9mm round creases the Kansatai's helmet and geysers dust from the hab-module wall.

"You fucking idiot!" exclaims Max to Davis, grabbing one of the subsonic pistols and shooting the wounded Kansatai.

Semo had been waiting patiently for things to go in one of the two ways that it could. A sudden sylable from the spook decides the direction, and Semo reacts accordingly. The kill-shot on the female is obvious, as is the fact that Angel wasn't able to put the male down. Semo whips out his Turai sword and attempts to fix that oversight.

Max's shot hits the remaining Kansatai in the left eye and the man steps back, reflexively bringing his hands up in a useless gesture even as the 9mm slug pulps his brain. Semo sidesteps through the cloud of blood and plunges his blade up through the man's abdomen, freeing a flood of gore and filth that washes over the hab-module floor. The Kansatai goes limp and slides off the Turai sword.

"At least they didn't have time to call for help," Mellish remarks.

"Fuck," Taylor spits. "Check 'em for cigarettes."

Max drops the still-smoking pistol in the crate.

"More importantly, let's see if they have a Vox that doesn't require surgery to get to it. I can do a helluva more with a government model than I can with Jane-Q Spacetraveller's."