"A lot of luck? But no, I think that plan should get us all dirtside and walking around without too much trouble."

"Good, I'll talk to Swims about playing his part. Get Hugh to help you get Max and One-Ton started on the collars. You need any help, just ask." He extends his hand to Ngawai and smiles. "Welcome to the team."

Ngawai shakes Davis' hand. Pretty good work considering they were both trying to kill each other not too long ago.

---

Davis finds Swims-the-Black in CIC carefully exercising around his dressings. He rises and his fur returns to a neutral shade. "Can I help you?"

"As a matter of fact, there is," Davis says. "I apologize, my Whirr is not as good as Hugh's, but we have an important role for you on Aikoro. We have a plan for getting past the security at the port, but it involves having Ngawai pose as a bounty hunter who has captured us. I know you used to be one of the...Alef-ka, was it? If you have any of your old armor or weapons, we need you to dress the part and act as her ex-Alef-ka muscle. Also, we need you to keep an eye on her. If she is planning on betraying us, we need you to be our eyes, and keep her busy or take her down so we can get out of trouble. Can you do that?"

"Gladly."

With disguising and field-stripping going on, Hugh walks up to Max and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. He holds out Max's gun with a "Don't make me do this again" look, but doesn't say anything.

(OOC: Hurray, Micro class! Imagine this happened before Gatac posted.)

"Thank you, Swims-the-Black. Keep an eye out, our lives will be in your hands."

Gatac wrote:

With disguising and field-stripping going on, Hugh walks up to Max and taps him on the shoulder to get his attention. He holds out Max's gun with a "Don't make me do this again" look, but doesn't say anything.

"Thanks. Now worries, I'm pretty sure the crazy train has left town." replies Max, holstering his pistol.

Davis takes advantage of the mission preparations to sit down next to Arketta as she preps her gear. He approaches her like a friend, but still in a somewhat apologetic mode. "How are you doing? I'm sorry about earlier, but I have a question for you, if you're interested in talking to me."

As everyone else packs, Louis finishes the task he'd put off as long as he could, finally starting late last night. Point six seconds, minimum burn, he thinks. He spent fifteen minutes making sure the thrust from the engines would only provide heat, not blow the...remains out into space. But now, a man comes down to this, a small, durable metal cannister, sealed, signed, written up, and carefully stored in a safe corner of the cargo hold. He stares at in for a minute, then gives the cannister a salute and closes the storage compartment. Task accomplished, Luis gets to work preparing for the next mission. Pistol suitably hidden away, SMG broken down and concealed where possible. He makes a note to ensure somebody trustworthy- (Swims?) is carrying a Frisbee from the stache, then goes to help mock up the collars and "monitor." He's a medic, he ought to be able to make sure the blinkies at least look right.

"If it's brief - I believe we are landing soon and we should be in the crashers," she replies, clearly the slowest in field-stripping her Earth gear.

---

Ngawai's pretty impressed with how the collars turn out. More than simple torcs, they actually are running a simple wireless network. Just gibberish being passed back and forth, but it certainly adds to the subterfuge.

Swims-the-Black joins the group, and if you did not know he was the only Whirr on board you wouldn't have known it was the same alien. The multicolored robes are gone, replaced by straps and belts holding an array of wicked blades. Turquoise paint adorns the Whiirr's arms and legs, similar to the Chosen ones' paint back on the alien world. Finally, Swims is wearing a battered, chipped, holed breastplate of a design almost identical to the armored... thing that negotiated for Greene. Swims shoulders two beam rifles and hefts a third, checking the fuel rod's integrity.

"Swims-the-Black is the name I took upon leaving the Arena," the shaggy monster explains. "I was known as Fourth Claw before that."

Davis cranes his neck around to see what Arketta's doing. "It's a simple question," he says. "You called me Ash-Giver earlier, and Hethna also called me that. I assume it's an insult to be named that, and I like to know what it means when people give me an unflattering name. Never know when it might be useful." If she's still having problems field-stripping her weapons, he moves over in front of her and moves his hand to help her. "May I?"

"If you help me, I will not learn," Arketta responds. She gets the SCAR stripped - average time for a boot, but not Delta.

"Ash-Giver would be Hethna Varos' name for you," she explains. "Both insult to you and stubborn grip on Imperial... " she motions with her hand like she's trying to find the word - "traditions. Sarcastic niceties. Some of our more lauded people have their own personal titles, but they mostly come with one's position. Akamu was the Hand that Guides the Sword, but that title transfers to whoever is commander of the Imperial forces. Hethna Varos was Sagacious Keeper of Ancient Ways, but there are many with the same title. Gorm, the famous Arena combatant, was known as the Dissolver. That was his own title. The same with Ghostskin, whose real name is lost to history."

"You were our interrogator; I'm sure Hethna bartered information for comfort and some measure of trust as I did, but he also would have no illusions that his larger room was still within a guarded, secure military base. At any time, you could revoke his privileges and all he was promised would turn to ash."

Davis nods. "Good to know. I hope that, despite recent events, I've earned a little more trust from you, Arketta. You're an important part of this team, and we're going to need you more than ever this time. You know how Imperial security protocols work better than anyone else here, and I need you to keep an eye out for anything that looks strange, no matter who it's from." He stands up. "I have no doubt that you'll keep things under control."

He starts to walk off towards the crashers. "And Arketta?" He cracks a wry smile. "If you catch me running off again, feel free to knock my ass out the next time you see me."

"We have a kauka," she smiles. "I'll just blow off your legs," she adds nonchalantly.

---

Fly, yes. Land, no.

Indiana Jones' admission keeps worming its way into Luis' head as Swims-no, Fourth Claw goes over the finer points of reentry. His final encouragement of "Don't worry, the vessel WANTS to land" doesn't help.

Everyone else is in the crashers. The Morningstar rattles slightly, the first signs of reentry. Then shaking, massive quivers that threaten to spill the team's carefully-stowed gear across the deck.

---

"Impellers! Impellers!" Fourth Claw frantically signs as Luis throttles up the gravity engines, realizing the ship isn't aerodynamic and isn't gliding anywhere but straight down. The Morningstar stops plummeting like a dead bird and begins fluttering down towards Aikoro's green expanse like, well, a leaf on the wind.

*Freighter Morningstar, you are entering an escape lane. Be advised, you are entering an escape lane. Return to bearing two-one-six immediately.*

Luis looks down between his feet through the holographics and sees that yes, he's drifting through space used by ships exiting Aikoro's gravity well. A quick slope of the impellers and Stanhill brings the Morningstar back on course.

*Morningstar, Pad six-nine. Repeat, land on pad six-nine.* The starport's beacon updates the CIC with a yellow flightline that culminates in a simple landing pad, steel gray against the flat green and brown terrain around the port. Luis juices the impellers again, this time spiraling downward, then rocking back and forth above the pad, then finally touching down a little rough with a crump that shakes the vessel once more.

"We will have to work on atmospheric flight," Fourth Claw signs. "But we are here and undamaged. Well done."

"Any landing you walk away from..." says Max to no one in particular as he extracates himself from the crash sofa, happy to be on the ground in one piece.

"Fuckin' A," agrees the bounty hunter. "All right, we're on the ground. Where am I supposed to be taking you people?" asks Ngawai, checking a few stingers' sliverpacks before attaching them to her battered armor. "It'll be suspicious if I'm asking my prisoners for directions."

"The fountain plaza in Gran's Hope," Davis says, climbing out of his own crasher. He loads his pistol and grabs a collar. "That doesn't have to be where you say we're going, of course." He walks over to his gear and starts digging around in it. "Our contact might be a little wary if he sees us looking like prisoners." He pulls a small hand mirror out of his bag. "How far away from the port do you think we can be before we can drop the prisoner act?"

"I dunno, depends on how thick their drone coverage is. We'll play it by ear."

"We waste time," Fourth Claw says, exiting the CIC after guiding Luis through a safe and secure shutdown of the Morningstar. "One-Ton and the boy will stay here. The rest of you, up! Get up, get moving! Remember, I am Fourth Claw, terrible champion of the Arena! I am not your friend! You are my captives!"

Angel grunts softly, opening his eyes slowly. "I've had worse landings...way worse landings. Lets do this."