"Not here, in a safe location. How would you like to retrieve it? We can just give you the address and wait while your men go there and confirm it."

"That would be fine," Panipon answers.

Hugh waves Semo over.

"Mr. Panipon will call some of his men over to transport the goods," Hugh says in his best Imperial. "Show them where the crate is, stay with them while they check the goods. Once they give you the thumbs up, come back here."

Once more back in the spaceport watering hole, Semo relaxes for a few moments on the padded bench. Though his body is relaxed, his eyes continue to sweep the place for trouble.

The Whirr pet of Panipon's is an interesting addition. Looks ugly and violent - not that that bothers Semo much.

"Yes, sir," Semo replies as the Cap calls him over and gives the order. "Do I leave them there with the goods, or will they be returning with me?"

"Leave them."

He turns to Panipon.

"First off, after your guys confirm receipt, the crate is your problem, and my men and I have better things to do than to help you move your stuff. Second, I'm sure that crate is going to a place that we have no business knowing about."

"Agreed, and agreed," Panipon tersely confirms. His green eye twitches and he speaks, not to Hugh but to what Hugh assumes are his people: *The big one will lead you to the package. Meet me at my skimmer.*

Angel perks up as three men by the nearest bar - spacers by the look of their jumpsuits - put their drinks down and get to an alert stance. Semo heads out, and two of the jumpsuits step in with him. The third goes back to his drink but remains interested in Hugh's table.

Two jumpsuited men, both fairly pale, one with short hair shaved into a pattern of swirls and spirals, the other one with stubby dreadlocks tipped with steel caps and a faint light to his right eye, fall into step beside Semo.

"I hope it's not a long walk," Dreadlocks quips.

It's not. Semo leads them up a level and, when the foot traffic tapers off, crawls down between the walkway to docking trellis 3 and the power dome maintenance ducts. Spiral helps him tug the crate out of Semo's hideaway.

It's an easy matter to check the crate's contents, then with a final "see you around," Dreadlocks and Spiral lug the crate towards trellis 6.

Back on the party level, Panipon tilts his head in answer. *All right, thank you.*

"Very well. This" - he slides the roll of what turns out to be gold disks imprinted with faint glyphs over to Hugh - "is yours, and I must bid you all good day."

"Wait, just a second there. I know a few things about metallurgy and the like." responds Max, grabbing one the coins before Panipon makes his exit.

Panipon waits patiently, standing with the Whiirr while Max starts mixing a solution from his Bag o' Science. He scratches one of the coins across the table, making a shiny yellow smear - so far, so good. Next, he applies a few drops from a syringe. Nothing. He tries a different solution, then a third. Finally the golden scratch turns a dull rusty color as the acid solution begins to break down the material. It's 24K gold as far as Max can tell, and the table they're sitting at has been permanently vandalized by acid.

admiralducksauce wrote:

Panipon waits patiently, standing with the Whiirr while Max starts mixing a solution from his Bag o' Science. He scratches one of the coins across the table, making a shiny yellow smear - so far, so good. Next, he applies a few drops from a syringe. Nothing. He tries a different solution, then a third. Finally the golden scratch turns a dull rusty color as the acid solution begins to break down the material. It's 24K gold as far as Max can tell, and the table they're sitting at has been permanently vandalized by acid.

"Looks good. My apologies, Panipon. It's just business, not a personal affront on your integrity." says Max, satisfied with the results.

*looks at Hugh*

"We should be leaving."

Panipon looks at Max's experiment with a bemused expression, finally replying to his explanation with a "Of course. Caution is the hallmark of an intelligent businessman. If you require my services again, you have my vox marker." He steps back and motions for the Whiirr to follow him. Panipon glides towards Angel's exit with a quick step and is soon gone amongst the late-night/early-morning spacer traffic.

Hugh packs up the gold.

"Pleasure doing business with you."

With Panipon gone, the team slowly filters out of the meeting place until they're reunited in a small side alley.

"Alright, step two - shadowport. Any deep thoughts or do we trust fortune's hand again?"

"Whatever we do, we should make sure the three spacers tailing us have found other business."

Angel and Semo put two and two together and determine that Spiral and Dreadlocks were two of the three men that Angel noticed watching the group. That leaves one at the bar, still sipping his drink, still trying to be innocuous. The man's in a drab spacer's jumpsuit like his crate-carrying fellows, with a thick neck tapering to a bullet head. A few days' stubble covers up a solid jaw. Angel can't determine if he's armed or not - at any rate, there aren't bulges that would give away any Earth-equivalent weaponry.

Semo leads the two toughs to where they secreted the crate of weapons. Once there, he helps them pull it out and waits while they confirm the contents.

"We're good here, Captain," Semo transmits over the comm, then begins the walk back. Fortunately, it's not far and he walks in just as Panipon and his ape leave. From the looks of things, they will be leaving soon as well.

"Looks like we're down to one," Semo replies to Angel. "The other two were headed toward spit 6 with the crate. They'll be busy with that for a little bit. I'll handle the last once we leave."

Once they are out of sight of the bar entrance, Semo will step around a corner or behind a wall and wait. He expects that the last man will be along shortly.

Davis suggests the team just "walk around", and as they file through the main archways, Semo ducks around one of the curving corridor supports and waits. Sure enough, Bullethead saunters through the same archway 10-15 seconds later. He walks briskly, and turns to follow the team. He doesn't appear to notice Semo.

Max is tapping away at his laptop, using the Kansat vox to gain access to local navigation. He can't tell if it's real-time maps from an orbiting network or just an interactive atlas, but he's downloading the maps for the surrounding area when he notices an attempted trace. He curses and yanks out the vox cord. Max has the maps and he doesn't think he's been made, but someone is definitely watching for his stolen vox signature. The local law enforcement have probably figured out their people got rolled by now and are trying to trace what the team took.

Behind the group, Semo follows Bullethead as the goon continues to shadow the Earthlings. Semo notices the man tilt his head a bit and speak, then Bullethead veers off to the Gateport lavatories.

Hugh watches Max yank the vox and frown.

"Davis, we're done with the loaner. I'd be delighted if it went into a pocket that's not going our way."

Semo had considered just hijacking the man, but as he starts to follow him, he gets curious as to exactly what he intends. Then the man veers off after apparently communicating with someone. Even more curious.

Semo decides to follow him. Worse come to worst, they can have a close encounter of the painful kind there.

"Following our tail, Captain. He's angling for the bathrooms. I'lll stick with him."

admiralducksauce wrote:

Max is tapping away at his laptop, using the Kansat vox to gain access to local navigation. He can't tell if it's real-time maps from an orbiting network or just an interactive atlas, but he's downloading the maps for the surrounding area when he notices an attempted trace. He curses and yanks out the vox cord. Max has the maps and he doesn't think he's been made, but someone is definitely watching for his stolen vox signature. The local law enforcement have probably figured out their people got rolled by now and are trying to trace what the team took.

"Woah! Flush that thing, would ya?" says Max, wiping the sweat off his brow from his near calamity.

"Captain, I recommend we find us a quiet spot to study what I was able to download. That'll at least give us a better picture of how we could execute the Op we came here for."

Davis nods, and watches for a mark to slip the stolen vox to.