"Not a poor idea," Swims agrees. "The flitcraft may well have authorization to be in this airspace. They ARE Apprehenders, after all. The problem remains - how do you find a ship without looking for it?"

Gatac wrote:

"While I do not agree with my colleague's mode of information gathering," Hugh says, "you have to admit that this leaves you in a bad situation. We're not going to expose our position to contact your ship, therefore we can't find it. If we can't find it, it might as well not be there at all. Agreeing with me on this point will not get you killed, Dunamis, but good things will happen if you can come up with a clever idea. With that in mind, Doc, why don't you stop eroding this poor man's bladder control? He's got some thinking to do."[/i]"

"Well, welcome the fuck back...Captain. I'm glad to see we're finally on the same wavelength..." replies Max, pulling the Stinger away and taking a step back from Dunamis.

"...We can't phone this one in and me hacking into the net this far out is going to send up all kinds of red flags. I hate to say this, but we need to go back to Gran's Hope."

"We could ride the sled back closer to civilization," Bello agrees. "A vox or cortex connection would blend in with the rest of the traffic then."

Dunamis perks up at the lack of imminent death, and comes up with an adjustment to the plan.

"OR... or, you've got those dead guys and their IFFed suits," he motions to the deceased Khiraba armor. "Use their vox, it's a friendly freq. You'd probably need to jiggle it so it didn't broadcast flatlined bios or their specific ID, but you could use their own channels. They're all over the damn planet by this point - why would they check on some ping in a canyon?"

Davis slides up next to Hugh. "I don't know about you," he whispers, "but the idea that we can just waltz back into Gran's Hope, disable a skilled Apprehender team and just fly away scott free seems a little fishy to me. I'm going to ask Ngawai about this Dumanis Kon. Something doesn't feel right here."

Hugh replies in English.

"Yes, ask her."

Davis walks back inside the Morningstar and up to the crash couches. "Ngawai? Are you awake?" he says softly, in case she still is asleep.

Ngawai slides the half-drawn stinger back into its sheath. "Yeah. Been resting. Heard the sled made it back in one piece. Can't make out the beast-grunts from here, though. What do you need?"

"They came back with a prisoner, a Apprehender going by the name Dunamis Kon. Max managed to browbeat him into giving up the location of his ship and Kon has proposed that we take out his crew, steal the ship and let him live, but something about this seems off. Know anything about him? I can pull an image up from an exterior camera if you need it."

"Actually, I have heard of him. Typically he runs larger crews, doesn't get his hands dirty if he can help it. I'd trust him to deal to save his own skin and not much farther. Honestly, a new ship might not be a bad idea if we can get to it. Don't tell the Whiirr, but this thing is a trouble magnet."

Davis nods. "Thanks for the advice, I'll pass that along. You get more rest, we might not be here long."

He heads back outside, stops at the entrance to the cargo bay, and waves Hugh over. "Well, Ngawai vouches for the story so far," he says in English, "but this still seems weird. This whole thing is based on questionable intel that could quite easily be a trap, extracted through violence from the one man it would help the most, and it suggests making a lot of noise and being visible at a time when we need to be the most stealthy. I'm not saying that I know it's a trap, but it's awfully sketchy and being extra-careful here probably isn't a bad idea."

Hugh nods.

"I hear you, but this is too important to pass up. Let's try to stack the deck in our favor a little."

Walking back into the main cargo bay, Hugh raises his voice again.

"Kilgore, I want access to the captured voxes. We won't transmit from here, so take care that it doesn't broadcast. Sarge, prep the gravsled for another excursion. I want volunteers for a strike force to ride with me."

He turns to Swims-the-Black and signs in Whirr.

"I need to take a look at the navigational data from when we flew through the canyon. Whatever responds to our signal will come to a spot of our choosing, and whether it's Dunamis's ship or more turai, we need a good ambush location to take care of them quickly.

Max breaks out the multitool and goes to work cracking open the captured voxes.

Max gets to work, quickly extracting the threadlike spool and transmitter from one of the intact-but-quickly-ruined Khiraba helmets. It's not too different from hijacking the Kansat vox back on Botane, and the scientist soon has his Toughbook wired into the Turai-channel vox and able to transmit.

Hugh's call for volunteers sees everyone step forward but Dunamis and Bello. The manpower is there; the armament might not be. Two AT-4s remain, and the ten spearbombs Max and Angel recovered from the Khiraba are arguably less powerful on an individual basis.

Hugh and Swims pore over the flight data, Hugh noticing that both Dunamis and Oskell were able to follow his Whiirr-sign. He finally finds what might be a good spot about 90 miles to the southeast. A bend in the river and some overgrown rock walls suggest a nice place for an L-shaped ambush. Although he can't tell for sure, there might be crags and cracks that provide deeper cover from any air support.

"Yes, sir!" Semo rises from his impromptu shut-eye and gets to work on the gravsled. Cover over any holes in the plating, repair the netting and replace the burned branches - in that order.

Luis, who has been similarly sneaking a few winks during the argument, stretches and goes to help Semo with the sled. Before they leave, he also wants to gather up a medkit or two and a Frisbee.

With a good site picked out that looks to combine overhead cover with high ground, all with enough space for a smaller ship to land in the riverbed, the group is ready to move out. The sled's been rigged up with the absolute last of the scrub brush and cargo webbing. With more than a dozen people loaded for bear, the sled's impellers whine under the weight but hold the vehicle steady.

Aikoro's yellow moon shines dully through encroaching clouds as Semo takes the battered vehicle out for a second time, traveling with caution over the rushing river.

Hugh checks his maps, printed on some glossy polymer from the Morningstar, with a surgeon's precision. He taps Semo, motioning towards a high rock cliff that arcs up above the riverbed. Trees cover the windward side and bare rock creates a well-covered slope down to a flat expanse where the river spreads out into a gentle pool before continuing on to the south. The Morningstar couldn't land there, but a manta ship or smaller vessel certainly could.

Semo does his best to nurse the protesting gravsled along. After a little while, Hugh points out a natural overlook. Semo nods and heads the recalcitrant beast in that direction.

Semo will let the other offload just outside the trees, then park the gravsled within so that it's not easily seen from above or below.

"Dunamis, the two of us are going to take a little stroll down there," Hugh says. "I'm really not in the mood for more violence, so if we could just do this without any silly moves, I'd appreciate it."

With the vox in his pocket, the SCAR in his hand and Dunamis a few meters in front of him, Hugh walks down into the canyon towards the moment of truth.

"Better let me call 'em in," Dunamis suggests as small water-smoothed rocks grind under their boots. He holds his hand out expecting the hacked vox.

"No worries about that, Dunamis," Hugh says with a small smile. "Let's finish our little stroll first, enjoy the quiet."