Outside Hangar B91

Hugh, Semo, Angel, Davis, Arketta, Mellish and their new hire Ngawai rejoin the port boss Leno and fifteen of his shadowport thugs at the airlock leading to Talia het Malenko's Imperial assault ship.

"Glad you could make it," he quips, producing his hand-vox. He taps a few commands and patches himself into the hangar speakers.

*Talia het Malenko, this is the Jang-xur Port Authority. Have you, your crew, and any passengers disembark from your vessel and stand by for inspection.*

"Crash the lock," he tells one of his goons. The goon swipes an access wand over the airlock panel. The door cycles quickly, but the lock itself is only large enough for eight people at a time. It takes three full cycles before everyone's inside hangar B91. Your team is the last group through, Leno not wanting any mishaps before he gets inside.

The inner door cycles open onto a lot of shouting. The port thugs have spread out into a wide half-circle around Malenko's ship and access catwalks and are screaming at four Turai and two floating attack drones to drop their weapons. The Turai are shouting the same, their voices amplified by their comms. These Turai stand firm in their chrome and gold battle armor, assaulted before they could activate the camo.

The Turai either wise up or get an order over their headsets, because they finally lower their beam rifles as the assault ship's airlock opens. Malenko, wearing a gold gown similar but less over-the-top than the lavish flowery... thing Davis and Semo spotted her in earlier, strides out onto the upper catwalk, flanked by two more Turai and... looks like four children ranging from six to eight years old.

"I trust that whatever misunderstanding has led you here can be cleared up with a minimum of noise, portmaster?" Her voice is, well, imperious in tone.

"That'll depend on your and yours," Leno replies, as gruff as the lady is arrogant. "I want all your crew and passengers out on the deck now." He nods to a few of his men. "Collect their weapons."

"Stay frosty," Hugh tells the team. "You see them twitch, cut them down."

Leno's men take the four deckside Turai beam rifles and stand back again. Around this time, the assault ship's cargo bay opens, depositing eight humans in nigh-identical black jumpsuits. Six more children exit the ship's airlock door as Malenko and her entourage walk down the catwalk steps. Leno's men take the beamers from these Turai as well. Finally, three more crewmen exit the topside airlock and are corralled with their comrades near the cargo bay. It's getting to be quite the circus.

It's about this time that Malenko spots Ngawai, hanging near the back of the assault team. "You whore of a whetu! This is how you repay me?! ME?!? Your lies won't save you-"

"Lady Malenko," Leno interrupts, "We have reason to believe you mean to destroy this station with explosives. My men will search your ship. If we do not find the evidence we seek, you will be free to go. I suggest you calm down and allow my men to proceed."

Talia's jaw drops at the mention of her "crime". Mercifully rendered speechless by the surprise, she stands, wavering back and forth. It looks like she might cry. Finally, she regains some measure of composure, saying, "I am guilty of nothing, but I swear to you all, you had better hope your thugs find what they are looking for because this insult will NOT be forgotten."

"Uh huh." Leno mumbles back at the noble. "Trins 1 and 2, search the ship. Make note of anything that could be used to destroy Jang-xur." Six of Leno's men move forward around the crowd of detainees. Three clank up the catwalks to start with the main levels, while the other three enter the assault ship's cargo bay.

"Boss, they've got... they've got a portable weapons scanner in here." One of the men calls.

"I told my men to search the cargo you sold us after we ran your big man over there through the network. Thought you might have planted explosives," Ngawai whispers to Davis before sliding back to her position.

Malenko explains as much to Leno. "Those bastards sold us cargo, and apparently one or all of them are criminals back in civilized space. The bitch had my Turai search the cargo for explosives. How ironic."

"Take the scanner, but I want you to use your eyeballs," Leno shouts over to the cargo bay. Within moments his men disappear amongst the assembler containers halfway visible inside the assault ship.

We're gonna get made, we're gonna get made, Davis thinks. Fuck it, no guts, no glory...

"Hey, Leno," he shouts. "Bring the kids over here, we'll search them too. Who knows what she's got hidden on them, and we need to get them away from her, now."

"Right." Leno walks over towards Lady Malenko's flock, firmly grasping one girl's shoulder. "All you kids, this way. Towards that man with the pouches," he points at Davis.

"Those are mine," Malenko argues.

"And they'll be searched like the rest of your property," Leno replies, turning to face the noble.

"You really gonna give her back these kids, Leno?" Davis asks. "After you know what she's going to do to them?" He motions for Ngawai to play along.

"Don't worry, she only eats the naughty ones," Ngawai adds. This appears to be news to quite a few of the children, who turn to stare agape at their mistress. Several start a beeline for the airlock.

"Stop helping!" Leno shouts over his shoulder at Davis and Ngawai. The tension is palpable. With half Leno's men inside the ship, it's becoming more obvious that the port authorities are outnumbered.

It's at this moment that Malenko actually starts for Ngawai, who's well over 30 feet away. Leno easily holds the Imperial back, her arms pinned to her sides. Nevertheless, grips tighten on weapons throughout the hangar bay.

Davis prepares himself to dive out of the line of fire, and sees Ngawai do the same. "What am I doing wrong, Leno? I think this is the perfect reaction when dealing with a dangerous psychotic that rapes and eats kids."

The captain said to stay frosty, and that's exactly what Semo's doing. He is alert and ready, but won't act until somebody starts something - and it certainly won't be himself!

It's certainly not Semo, who stands steady as a rock, ready to unload on the Turai drones. It's not Hugh, who's been scanning the room like an Old West gunfighter, letting the spook take the driver's seat on this tour bus straight to hell. Nor is it Angel - ready to duck down behind the catwalk staircase mere feet away. It's not even Davis, whose verbal instigations have been flicking matches at a friendly gasoline fight.

Davis sees Ngawai's beam rifle raise and is almost glad it's not him that'll be drawing fire. He's a little puzzled, though. Leno's holding Malenko stock-still, but the big man's blocking her from Ngawai's shot-

Leno's head cranes around to shout another rebuke at Davis when Ngawai's first shot hits him right in the ear. Malenko can't shield her face from the spray of gore. Blinded for the moment, stumbling under the weight of a suddenly floppy port boss, Malenko is a sitting duck for her former bodyguard's second shot. The pulse-beam punches through Talia het Malenko's chest. Pink spray froths up around the smoking wound as the Imperial official falls back, pinned to the ground by Leno's corpse.

Ngawai gives Davis a wink like back at the bazaar as she dives for the airlock door controls. The inner doors start cycling shut.

The hangar's nothing but unintelligible screaming; Malenko's cries of pain, the children wailing, port thugs shouting in surprise and Turai shouting for help from their crew.

Leno's men aren't sure who to shoot - their "allies" just executed their boss, but Malenko took a hit as well. It's just enough confusion for the six Turai to draw their swords and charge!

"Goddamnit!" Davis runs to get into the airlock before the doors cycle. "I'm going after Ngawai!" he shouts at Hugh, and gets ready for a fight in a telephone booth.

Of course it would be the spook's pet that would start things up. The surprising thing is when she shoots both the security guy and her previous boss.

There is a moment, much like at the beginning of most battles, where time seems to stutter for a moment. Everything happens with crystal clarity and a kind of shuddering slow motion.

The turai draw their swords and begin to charge. Semo brings his big gun up and lobs and AB into the middle of the biggest group of targets he can find that won't involve blowing away any of the children.

"With you!" Hugh shouts, following Ngawai & Davis.

Semo has two targets right in front of him; the Turai attack drone, floating 20 feet in the air, and one Turai who's gathering momentum. A second Turai's covered by the catwalk staircase and a few of the kids, so Semo trusts in his weapon and fires two 25mm shells. The first target, the Turai, manages to charge forward past the shell's blast radius. Shrapnel patters off their high-tech armor like rain. The second round is a different matter. It slams into the drone, penetrating just enough before detonation that the drone's chassis becomes part of the airburst. Most of these fragments fail to wound the Imperials below, but Semo sees a few silvery pieces thud into one of the Turai and stick.

Semo's double thunderclaps start a panic. Half the kids throw themselves onto the deck, the other half beeline for the far corners of the hangar or the airlock. Semo lets the XM-25 hang on its sling and draws his blade, ready to take care of business.

Davis shoves a kid out of the way and ducks under the closing airlock door, coming face to face with Ngawai. He tries for a quick end to the fight, swinging his weapon's stock up and around for a knockout, but the wily (and much more spry than she might have advertised previously) bodyguard stops Davis' stroke short with her own beam rifle.

"Isn't this what you wanted?!" she shouts at Davis, her voice muffled by her faceplate.

Outside the airlock melee, the charging Turai slam into Leno's men. It becomes readily apparent why every single Turai you have seen carries one of those oversized, anachronistic pigstickers. One port thug falls dead, his head bouncing away from his neck. Two more hit the deck holding stumps or savage, spraying torso wounds. The last port thug manages to block his attacker's swing with a recently-appropriated beam rifle. Both men tumble to the ground.

Hugh's decision to turn and help Davis saves him from a vicious Turai melee. One of the Imperial soldiers closest to Malenko disregards Hugh as a threat, instead leaping over one of the children thrown prone by Semo's gunfire to reach Arketta. She backs up, preparing to feed her once-comrade a particle beam, but his downward slash opens her right leg. Arketta falls backward before she can get a shot off. Her hand snaps to her own blade as she drops to the deck. Angel, waiting for a clean shot, watches this duel go down less than ten feet away.

Semo's got a dance partner as well - the sixth Turai kicks a kid out of the way and half-trips on another but the chrome swordswoman reaches the big gunman. Blade meets blade and the Turai's charge comes to a screeching halt as she meets the brick wall that is Semo Putupu.

The furious battle that erupts everywhere around Hugh becomes a dull roar to the Delta captain. His mind is focused on nothing but Ngawai. He shoulder rolls into the suddenly-cramped airlock as the door continues its downward progress, prompting a terse "Fuck!" from the traitor. Hugh tries for a muzzle strike, thrusting his rifle forward like a spear, but Ngawai proves she's worth the money as she bats it to the side. Hugh's weapon skips off her shoulder armor.

"Not exactly what I was looking for!" Davis says as Hugh rolls into the airlock. "A little more subtlety, a little less collateral damage!" he shouts as he tries to swing his rifle into her gut.

Angel tenses as the situation goes from "tense" to "clusterfuck", his rifle up and his finger ready. As the Turai charge, he shifts a bit to get under cover, ready to send a few well-placed rounds into anyone who tries to close on the Deltas, starting with those that have already managed to get into melee with Arketta.

Angel braces his rifle against the staircase he's using for cover. He waits until Arketta's opponent raises up for what the poor bastard thought would be a killing blow, then gives him a double tap. Angel's usual killshot's deflected by the helmet, but his second round finds purchase in the upper torso, staggering the Imperial long enough for Arketta to add a stab wound to the Turai's growing list of problems. Angel's teammate scrambles to her feet as her opponent regains his own footing.

The remaining attack drone beelines for Malenko's ship's airlock, spraying slivers at Leno's last two men on the deck. The one man without a dance partner takes fire across his chest and neck. The hypervelocity rounds shred his vacuum suit and the flesh beneath, taking him to the ground. He's still moving, but it's hard to tell how bad he's hurt. The drone's buzzsaw whine stutters as it fires into the melee between the last port thug and his Turai. The Turai doesn't seem to care that there's incoming fire - the IFF prevents the drone for accidentally hitting its comrade. Even with the interrupted fire, several streams strike the security man, opening up raw wounds across his back. Undeterred for the moment, the wounded thug cracks his Turai across the face with his own stolen beamer. The Imperial hits the deck for the second time as the thug continues his berserk flailing, raining blow after blow onto the Imperial.

Any children who are still standing duck and cover now - Mellish scales the catwalk steps, opening up on two Turai with his Mk.48. The Imperials reflexively flinch at the noise and stagger under the impacts, but save for a few flesh wounds to arms and legs it's mostly sound and fury.

"Shit!!!" Mellish shouts as he's now got their undivided attention. "Didn't kill 'em! Didn't kill 'em!"

"Shit!" Semo yells when he realizes that he didn't account for the Turai's momentum. Dumb, amateur mistake! Still, the drone takes his second round solidly, exploding in a rain of scrap metal. Fortunately, the kids have enough sense to hit the floor and stay there.

The Turai come charging in, swords waving in deadly fashion. Fortunately, Semo is ready. Bringing his own alien sword up, he blocks the Turai's strike. At the same time, he bumps her with his shoulder; it's not enough to knock her down, but does force her to stop suddenly.

"Welcome, little miss. Care to dance?" the man known as Sumo asks, an evil smile spreading across his broad face. Remembering a combination Livia taught him, he attempts to stomp on her foot while coming in high with the blad.

Semo's stomp goes nigh-unnoticed, his heavy boots failing to dent the heavy armor, but it does stop the Turai from sidestepping his downward stab. Semo's opponent twists to avoid the blow but his blade sinks into the woman's armored shoulder, piercing the layered plates and coming out crimson. Semo can tell it's bad. Her left arm hangs useless as blood runs freely from under the winged pauldron. Amazingly, the Imperial's training demonstrates how indoctrinated they are - the swordswoman stays on her feet, secure in the knowledge that all she has to do is kill Semo, stay alive, and the frisbees will take care of the rest.

Ngawai throws herself backwards into the far corner of the airlock, narrowly avoiding Davis' first swing. A second swing's blocked by Ngawai's rifle, then Davis is up close, close enough to slam an elbow into her helmet. Little effect, but it feels good. The traitorous bodyguard throws her arm up to protect her from another elbow, then crouches low and shoves Davis back. He gets in a low kick as he spins off the near wall past Hugh.

Back outside, one of the two Turai harried by Mellish's withering fire charges up the steps at the Hammer! His bloody-minded ascent's foiled by the sheer amount of bullets Mellish is firing, however, and the beleaguered Imperial takes temporary shelter behind the catwalk supports. His partner takes the opportunity to pick up a beamer off one of the dead port thugs. The Turai fires from the hip, the pulse-beam blowing through the staircase landing to scorch meat from Mellish's leg.

"Not again!" he shouts, half-tripping, half-falling onto the catwalk with a slam. "Semo!!! Semo!!! Shooter!"

Semo's opponent, made sluggish by pain and blood loss, comes in with a disemboweling upwards stab that's easily swatted aside.

40 feet towards the bow of Malenko's ship, the Turai wounded by Angel and Arketta tries to bind up the ex-Turai in a vicious grapple. Arketta has none of it, and bashes the soldier in his faceplate before pushing him off. The grapple broken, the two combatants circle each other, one trying to give Angel a shot while the other tries to avoid the same.

One of the unhindered Turai picks up what might well be his own beam rifle from the corpse of one of Leno's men. Trusting in his IFF, he fires once at the last of Leno's thugs, who is currently wailing on another Turai like Robert Patrick laying into Schwartzenegger in Terminator 2. The whap-beam blows the man's arm off and the rescued Turai nods to his partner as he recovers a beamer for himself. The aspiring sharpshooter spins and snaps a second shot off at Arketta. This one lands home as well, punching through the warrior-woman's abdomen and filling the air around Angel with red mist. Arketta falls backwards, writhing in pain, smoke trailing from the white-hot strike plate and her sizzling midsection.

The final Turai shoulders his recovered weapon, shakes off the rattling the thug gave him, and fires from supine. It's a shitty shot - Angel thinks the guy might have fired at him but he doesn't even need to flinch.