"It's on the station's cameras, Ngawai. They already know. I'm offering you a way out of here that doesn't involve having to fight your way past a small army. Be smart, take the offer. We'll get you to our next destination in one piece, as opposed to the several that you'll be leaving Jang-xur in if you stay here."
"Good," Davis says, and looks over at Hugh. "Captain Verrill, you feeling up to watching her on the way back? Make sure nothing happens to her, if you could."
One hand on the pistol holster and another on Ngawai's shoulder, he turns to Semo.
"Sarge, I want you to watch the exchange and bring the turai crewguys back to our hangar on the double. If the station security comes knocking at the Morningstar's hull, don't wait for me."
Trusting Semo to get the job done, he briefly stops at one of the fallen warriors and grabs two large robes, hiding Ngawai's bonds and his own weapons beneath them.
"We're gonna go back now, real casual like," he says to her as he walks her into the airlock, noting that there are no security cameras inside. While it cycles, he grabs the payment from her backpack and pockets it. "Appearance of propriety, Ngawai. We almost had them goaded into shooting at us, that would've made for a far more convincing show on the security feed. But it's done, we can salvage this, and if we don't draw attention to ourselves we'll be out of here in a couple of minutes. Deal?"
Davis keys down on his radio. "Captain Verrill, if you could get her patched up once you get back, I'd appreciate it." He walks back over to the rest of the team. "Well, who wants to be a hostage with me?"
Arketta, who appears to be much better following her mauling-by-particle-beam, steps forward.
"I'll do it. I doubt any of you have been on an assault ship before."
Mellish falls in behind Captain Verrill, slapping the cover back down on his Mk. 48 and racking the bolt. He's pale, and sweating more than he should under his load, but he's walking around. Not bad for someone who had a sword through their abdomen.
That leaves Semo and Angel to cover the exchange.
---
"Just don't walk too fast, Cap," Ngawai remarks. "My leg isn't what it used to be."
Davis drops all his weapons except for the SCAR, and motions for Arketta to do the same. He walks around to the cargo door and waves. "We're ready to do the exchange."
The hatch into the ship's interior cracks open and the first guy they spoke to peeks out. Everything appears in order, so he waves behind him and cycles the door all the way. A young man, maybe in his early 20s, and a nervous woman in her 40s exit the ship's interior wearing black coverall-style vacuum suits. They have stingers holstered on their belts along with voxes. The man carries his suit's gloss-black helmet under one arm, while the woman idly fiddles with hers.
It's weird - the woman reminds Davis of one of his high school teachers.
Resemblances to Mrs. Thompson notwithstanding, the two crewmembers approach Davis and Arketta.
"Um... how about I search you, your Turai there searches her, and then we switch?" suggests the man. Assuming no argument, the man pats Davis down while Arketta searches the woman. They swap duties, and it appears that the crewmembers really are just packing a stinger and a vox each.
"All right, come forward," shouts the acting shipmaster from inside the corridor. "Yero, Kemba, go on out there."
Yero and Kemba (the man and woman, respectively), exit the cargo hold at a brisk pace. Davis hears the shipmaster call up "All right, close it up!" and the cargo bay doors start sliding shut. Outside and above, the monotasks and docking clamps begin a clanking, noisy retraction, folding up into tightly-packed sconces and clearing the assault ship's exit from the hangar bay. Davis and Arketta stumble as the assault ship's inertial fields power up, providing a disorienting addition to the existing gravity.
Yero and Kembo turn to watch the assault ship begin to float freely in the hangar bay. Some sort of energy castoff ripples the air below the ship, like waves on asphalt on a hot day.
"Where's your ship?" Kemba asks Semo, looking like she wants to get out of the hangar bay charnel house as soon as possible.
Angel stands about, slightly off of Semo, once again putting on his 'Scary, dangerous motherfucker' face on. The face that says 'Civilians, we just chewed apart the well armed, well trained part of your crew. Do not fuck with us.'
Part of his is honestly a bit disappointed. "Army Tactical Manual for Ship Board Combat, Vol. I" has a rather nice ring to it. Still, thus far the adventures with the Turai have left him without any major injuries - seems like a good enough idea to keep it that way.
Semo gets everyone into the hangar airlock and cycles the doors. The air still smells like blood and burned flesh. Beamer impacts crater the walls. Kemba looks at the damage nervously, while Yero tries to stay stoic, staring straight ahead.
The traverse is lightly populated - the few people who do have to pass B91 are doing so very quickly. Semo spots more port thugs down in the A section. There's probably another dozen or so, all armed with longarms and wearing a variety of armored vacuum suits.
Apparently letting the kids go first was a good idea. The port thugs are trying to herd a group of children who have just seen things no child should have to see. It's not going well, and it proves to be a perfect distraction for Semo, Angel, and their captives to head up the wide thoroughfare towards their own hangar.
The foot traffic increases to normal levels as Hugh, Mellish, and Ngawai gimp their way back to M3. Ngawai's leaving a scattered blood trail, although the long robe soaks up much of what's not compressed by her armored suit. It's enough for Angel to pick up on it as his group walks quickly towards freedom, but either nobody else takes notice or they don't feel like tempting fate.
The two groups actually meet about ten yards from the gaping, ruined M3 airlock and go up to the Morningstar's newly-installed own airlock.
"We going to let them keep their pieces, sir?" Mellish asks Hugh in English.
"I don't know who's shipmaster, but we have orders to contact our ship once you're ready to leave," Yero says.
---
Back on the assault ship, the "doorman" waves Davis and Arketta through the cargo hold door. The feeling of movement increases, and you hear the shipmaster shouting commands as he climbs the steps towards what must be the conn. "Hangar's open? Give me point five ahead, keep the weapons primed! Open channel 8177, inform me as soon as you have contact. Get us into Ossogur."
The shipmaster clanks back down the steps, flanked by two black-suited crew with stubby bullpup-style beamers. The man has graying hair and a lined face that still has some smeared blood on it from the battle. He's been frisbeed before - the tan mottling extends across his otherwise pale face. He looks Davis and Arketta over.
"Keep 'em here until we hear back from our people," the master tells the doorman and the two other crew. He disappears back up the steps.
Davis finds a place to sit, leans back and relaxes. "How are you holding up?" he asks Arketta in English. "This has to have been a rough last few days for you."
"It has," Arketta replies to Davis. "Although I feel the worst has not yet passed." She looks like she might expound, but decides against having a heart-to-heart while under the watchful eye of armed crew. Soon after, Davis' radio crackles to life with Hugh's voice. Soon after that, the shipmaster has Davis and Arketta brought up the steps to the main ship corridor to hear the good news.
Davis' radio crackles again, this time with Yero's voice.
*Kemba and I are here and they're ready to go. Lift the lockdown for M3.*
The Imperial shipmaster leans closer to Davis and nods for him to activate the radio.
*I read you, Yero. Lifting lockdown for M3. Tell them to set their comms to 8177 and we'll set a beacon.*
*Set comms to 8177, head for beacon. Understood,* replies Yero, who repeats the frequency to Hugh.
In the Morningstar's CIC, Luis and Swims watch the amber lockdown indicators flash green and flicker out. The docking clamps give way and the freighter floats free on its impellers. One red icon remains, however. With the interior airlock damaged and unresponsive, the hangar bay doors refuse to open to space. With Leno's death and the subsequent chaos, it does appear that noone informed the proper parties that there was a GAPING HOLE in one of Jang-xur's hangars.
"It has," Arketta replies to Davis. "Although I feel the worst has not yet passed." She looks like she might expound, but decides against having a heart-to-heart while under the watchful eye of armed crew. Soon after, Davis' radio crackles to life with Hugh's voice. Soon after that, the shipmaster has Davis and Arketta brought up the steps to the main ship corridor to hear the good news.
Davis' radio crackles again, this time with Yero's voice.
*Kemba and I are here and they're ready to go. Lift the lockdown for M3.*
The Imperial shipmaster leans closer to Davis and nods for him to activate the radio.
*I read you, Yero. Lifting lockdown for M3. Tell them to set their comms to 8177 and we'll set a beacon.*
*Set comms to 8177, head for beacon. Understood,* replies Yero, who repeats the frequency to Hugh.
In the Morningstar's CIC, Luis and Swims watch the amber lockdown indicators flash green and flicker out. The docking clamps give way and the freighter floats free on its impellers. One red icon remains, however. With the interior airlock damaged and unresponsive, the hangar bay doors refuse to open to space. With Leno's death and the subsequent chaos, it does appear that noone informed the proper parties that there was a GAPING HOLE in one of Jang-xur's hangars.
Max might have to take a spacewalk after all.
"Sonuva."
Max keys his radio.
"Captain, we have no-go here in our hangar. I'll have to manually bypass the outer hangar door's safeties."
With a grumble, Max puts his vacuum suit back on, attaches one of the thruster belts, spools out a long line of safety cord, and grabs his Toughbook and tools for another go at the hangar bay door.
clomp clomp clomp
His footfalls are muffled and heavy inside the suit. The air is cold, stale, and still smells of rot - the suit having automatically refreshed its supply with Jang-xur's own atmo.
splik splik splik
Max grimaces as he stomps his way through the puddles of protein. This is just nasty, he can't help but think. He makes sure the safety line isn't going to get caught up on the catwalks or anything protruding monotasks, then loops it around a second contact point near the bay doors. The access panel's still detached from his dry run a few minutes ago, so it's quick work to hook in his Toughbook and send the "Open Bay Doors, Hal" command.
The doors grind against mechanical safety locks for a second until they override with a massive spang. They crack open, revealing the blue and teal wisps of the Ossogur Nebula. The air starts rushing out of M3 in a deafening hurricane.
A hailstorm of spent brass pings off the walls and doors as it's sucked into the void. Then comes chunks of dead men, torn asunder by Claymore and grenade. The spilled rancid slop leaves the hangar in great spirals of spray, leaving nasty stains across Max's suit and gear. Max still can't move - it's all he can do to hold onto his safety line.
The air should be tapering off, Max thinks. The horrifyingly loud cyclone should be giving way to his own breath and heartbeats, of muffled scrapes of boots on metal. It's not. The first sign something's wrong comes when a random passerby ricochets off the jagged hangar airlock doorway from out in the main thoroughfare. The blood spray indicates a knockout, if not a fatal collision. The man half-slides, half-rolls out into the vacuum. Crimson warning lights flare outside in the corridor, and sparks fly from the useless personnel airlock as safety overrides fail to close the door that Leno's men cut free.
The Morningstar's hovering freely in the hangar, unmoved by the gale-force winds. Max figures he should get back before somebody overrides his override and starts crawling hand-over-hand up his safety line. It's like climbing a vertical rope with a gorilla riding you bareback - the vacuum pulls Max so he's parallel with the hangar deck, but the action scientist grits his teeth and climbs. With great effort, Max makes it back to the airlock in time to see three more Jang-xur visitors take a one-way trip to Oz. The air finally begins to taper off as massive bulkheads seal off the M docks from the rest of the station. It's clear the Morningstar will be in big trouble if they don't leave right now.
The good news is the new airlock on the ship works just fine. The doors cycle, the glyphs flash green, and Max takes off his helmet and breathes a big breath of... well, it's still fairly stale.
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