Episode 417: Siege, Part Four
Nika's all about getting the hell out of here but she's not going to do it half-cocked.
Nika: How far down the other hallway is the space port?
Beglan: About a hundred, two hundred yards, something like that. Well, it’s not the main area of the space port …
Nika: But it’s where other ships are at.
Beglan: Yeah.
And how are the bombs rigged again? Nika has Rina give her a refresher course. Basically, the bombs are rigged with the burn gel, a nasty acid that eats through just about anything once it’s activated by an electric current. There are mercury switches on the devices to make the bombs go off if they’re jiggled in the act of disarming or removing them.
Nika: Go back down the hall and shoot it from a distance and blow it.
Rina: Thank you. I thought that over an hour ago.
Arden: No, that’s a bad idea.
Beglan: Do you know what that will do?
Nika: Well the way my engineer just explained it to me, it’s going to blow the entire hallway.
Beglan: Then set fire to it. Expose us to the elements. Possibly set fire to any fuel lines.
Arden: And hydrogen tanks are like, fifty yards away.
Nika: There’s a blast door between them and the bomb.
Beglan: Yes but not inside the pipelines. There’s pipelines out there. If it were to hit one of the pipelines …
Rina: Can we shut them off?
Arden: I realize this isn’t a committee or a democracy but that is a very bad idea.
Nika: (easily) Fair enough.
Beglan: I mean, it might destroy one of the pipelines leading to the landing area. Blow up the ship as well.
Which doesn’t sit well with Rina.
Rina: Well, it was a nice idea while it lasted.
Beglan: If it is burn gel, there—
Nika: I’m weighing the options. I’m listening to you.
Beglan: I think it would be dangerous to do that.
Nika: No, really? I’m definitely getting that. This is why I’m asking what it does.
Rina: Chain explosion. That would be bad.
So’s waiting around down here for the other terrorists to pick us up.
Beglan: If they were smart they would aerosolize it, so you’re only getting tiny bits of splatter everywhere and it will prolong the burning, too.
Rina: Yeah, that’s what I would do.
Joshua: (to Rina) I really didn’t need to know that.
Nika: That would burn the very air, wouldn’t it?
Beglan: It would but it wouldn’t need air to burn. It burns in vacuum.
Joshua: Okay. Not that this isn’t a fascinating science lesson, but in about two minutes I’m reasonably certain they’re going to call back wondering where the hell we are and at this point, my inclination is to have somebody with a gun—(he pauses to acknowledge this with an eyeroll)—with a throat mike on, have a little bit of shootin’ going off in the distance and having me do a gurgle-gurgle-gurgle, draw their attention and see if we can draw a couple more off.
Rina: Divide and conquer.
Kiera: I don’t think they’re going to come down here two at a time. Just an opinion.
Joshua: Maybe not.
Kiera: I think it would be better to go up.
Nika: I don’t want to go shootin’ in a crowd of civilians.
Kiera: And I don’t want to fight to my death in a corridor.
Rina: I could maybe booby-trap the elevators so it will fall …
Kiera: Okay and we’re stuck here til when?
Joshua: I’m going to be a bitch.
Nika: Yes you are. A lot.
Joshua: I’m going to be a bitch, Captain. We’ve got probably a minute and a half. I need you to be Captain and I need you to make a decision here.
Nika: (smiling daggers) I hate you.
Joshua: I know you do. That’s my job as the XO, to make you hate me, but to push you forward, and do it. Make a decision.
Beglan: Probably one that doesn’t get us blown up.
Joshua: By the way, the burn thing? That’s bad.
Rina: You know, some might call it …
Rina and Nika both: … Fire.
Joshua: Tick, tick, tick!
Nika paces and turns.
Nika: If all of the things on the main level are locked down, we’re not getting out no matter what we do there.
Rina: True. Well …
Arden: So that leaves …
Nika: Going through a crowd of civilians with a bunch of guns.
Rina: Could I make a suggestion? We all go up in the elevator. We pretend to be hostages. We put the hostages in front so they can’t see that guards aren’t the guards but you holding the submachine gun. (points to Arden) We lob the two flash-bangs into the crowd. We’ll knock out the hostages, yeah, but we’ll knock out the bad guys with the guns. And then we take their guns away from them and truss them up.
Arden: I’m keeping the gun so I’m won’t be a hostage between you and the bad guys.
Joshua: Fair enough. (a beat) Actually, that’s a …
Nika: That’s actually not a bad idea. And from Rina, for heaven’s sake.
Joshua starts hustling us to the elevator. The leader terrorist we leave where he lies.
Joshua: Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! We’re getting into the elevator. This elevator goes all the way up to the top. Please do not stop.
We have to drag Elevator Man’s body out. There’s blood and brains on the walls and the floor. There’s nothing we can do about that.
Joshua: Of course that blood stain in the middle of the elevator may ruin the—
Rina: They’re not going to see it if we’ve got it jammed full of people.
And there are seven of us in it. Our crew of five, Beglan, and Dallas. As we ride it up, we discus tactics.
Arden: I would like to make a suggestion. Rina should be in front. Cuz she has a vest.
Rina: Okay. I’m the Russian tank.
Joshua: And who’s throwing the gorram grenades?
Rina: The taller people. Not the short one in the front. (a beat) You think? Or should I do it?
Joshua: Do you not have an underarm throw?
Nika: Make it quickly.
We take stock of our crew’s throwing skills. Kiera bows out. Nika pulls the duty—she’s just about the tallest of all of us and she’s got a good aim with ranged weapons. She’ll throw both, one after the other. All the other details fall quickly in place. Rina will exit first, then Joshua, and split to either side. Nika will throw the grenades as Arden and Kiera exit and split. At Joshua’s order, Rina gives Nika the second of the two submachine guns she’d gotten off the terrorists. After all, Rina’s got her pistol.
Joshua: Remember, try not to randomly kill the people once they’re already down. The people that are not armed are the civilians. So don’t kill them, either.
Rina: (sighing) I’ll try.
Beglan and Dallas opt to ride in the very back of the elevator, thanks, behind the crew. And that’s all the time we’ve got to plan because the elevator dings! and the doors open onto a spacious lobby platform. The main portion of the lobby is several steps below us and for a second or two, all we see at floor level are the heads of the hostages.
Fish in a barrel, folks.
We jump out as planned. Rina’s first, cutting to the left. Joshua second, cutting to the right. There’s a guard standing at the elevator and Joshua tries to put him on the deck with a leg sweep. He misses, however, but saves his friends from being shot as they jump out. The guard brings his gun to bear on Joshua. The terrorist shoots and hits. Nothing lethal, just nasty. Arden spots a terrorist at the rear of the lobby and shoots—he hits and the terrorist goes down. Then Nika runs up with the flash bangs. She throws. They fly. They blow. Everyone within twenty feet of them falls. We, however, were expecting it and cover our eyes and ears, and escape the stun.
Kiera recovers first and shoots the terrorist who shot Joshua. The shot takes the terrorist out spectacularly, greasing him where he stands but Kiera doesn’t even stop to admire the effect. Eyes glittering, she swings her submachine gun onto on another terrorist, shoots, and nails her as well. It’s another spectacular hit and the woman goes down in a bloody mess. Kiera is on a roll and Arden, being no dummy, sticks behind Kiera like glue.
We scan the room for more terrorists but find nothing but panicked civilians. Hell, is there anyone left to shoot? The hostages realize that this isn’t a mass execution but a rescue and they cheer, cry, pray… all those things that people in their position tend to do. Things quiet down and in a few minutes we hear someone ask over one of the dead terrorist’s comms:
Voice: Uhh … nobody called to check in. (a beat) Boris. Is everything okay?
Joshua: (as Boris) Everything’s fine.
Kiera checks the people she’s shot, to make sure they re well and truly dead and not just playing possum. The woman is gone. The man is too, but Kiera recognizes him as her face-job client. He’s wearing the face she gave him. Odd. What is he doing here?
Arden inspects the body of the terrorist he’s shot and finds the detonator for the bombs installed all over. We’re able to suss out how to disable the bombs using it and we call the SWAT team in. While we’re mopping up with the hostages, the SWAT team apprehends the remaining two terrorists in the vault. Looks like this was all an elaborate bank heist and not politically motivated terrorism at all.
Needless to say, we come out of this looking like heroes and You Go corporate headquarters is rather pleased with us. We saved their building, we saved the hostages, we saved whatever was in the vault. Yay, us! As a result, not a lot of questions are asked about the guy downstairs that appears to have been shot, execution style, which lets Kiera off the hook.
You Go HQ fuels us up for free and grants us a half-price fuel voucher for use at all You Go fuel facilities, good for a year. You Go covers about a quarter of the Verse and the voucher would come in very handy indeed.
Nika, however, hasn’t had her head turned by all the applause. She calls Joshua onto the carpet for not telling her about Arden’s sneaking in that dose of Chempliant into his bag, calls Arden onto the carpet for just being insanely stupid enough to dose himself with it, and Kiera she tears into for killing an unconscious man in cold blood. Arden defends himself with the assertion that he thought Nika already knew he was carrying. No, she did not know! You jerk. Ass-reamings doled out, Nika turns us back to the job of being cargo haulers.
Friday, 26 Sep, 2521
Over the next day, we pick up our cargo. The first of the power stations is destined for one of the moons of Newhope, and we arrange to go to Newhope first. We still have to pay Byshek for the shipment we’d made for him. Cargo secured in our containers, we make ready to leave and just before we take off, a delivery arrives for Joshua. With our departure window fast approaching, we pause and sign off for the delivery and haul the big box into the passenger lounge to open it. It’s a body-sized crate, with the name YoyoDyne Robotics stenciled on the side. Joshua’s face lights up like Christmas.
Joshua: My robot!
Rina: What?
Nika: Your what?!
Joshua: The one I ordered. Back on that planet where we were chopping trees.
Rina: Meridian?
That was over two months ago. Arden is less than enthused.
Arden: (flatly) You ordered a robot?
Nika: We’re not allowed to have a robot.
Joshua: There was some sort of email that—
Nika: Don’t you remember what happened the last time we had a robot?
Valerie. A picture of her with the message, This is not a robot, with the word ‘not’ crossed out. The discovery of that wire sticking out of her head. The subsequent assassination of the freakin’ Prime Minister of the entire freakin’ Verse, for goshsakes. Robots … us … not the best of combinations. Even so, Joshua tries to explain.
Joshua: There was an email message. We got some sort of message over the thing while I was on the ship waiting for you to kill everybody, advertising some sort of robot.
Rina: (remembers) Oh no, you didn’t. Not that!?
Joshua: Well, yeah …
Rina: Don’t you understand what’s— (gives up, mutters) … This is bad, this is bad ….
Looking over the invoice, Joshua sees that the 50 credit delivery charge has already been deducted from his down payment and now all he needs to do is continue to make the monthly payments of 99 credits for the next 16 months. Sticker shock doesn’t even hit Joshua. He’s confident he can pay it. Nika, however, nearly blows a gasket.
Nika: WHAT?!
Arden: What kind of robot is it?
Rina: All I can say is, it better not be some kind of girl.
We unpack it and put it on its feet. It’s a TOPIO Dio, a general service robot. Able to bartend, clean and do other cooking and cleaning duties. It’s vaguely anthropomorphic, in that it has a recognizable head and shoulders and arms and torso, but where the legs are is a single fused base unit on wheels. The head is less like a mannequin and more like a child’s cartoon drawing of a motorcycle helmet with sealed-in-place dark sunglasses/goggles instead of a visor. The hands on the robot are fingered and gloved in a soft but durable material. It’s shiny white plastic and polished metal, with accents in graphite grey and aqua blue.
Joshua: It’s totally AWESOME! This has been the BEST day ever!
Arden: Oh, God …
Fed up, Arden whacks him on the arm. Rina thanks him for it: spasiba, Arden.
Joshua: Ow … ow.
He rubs his arm but nothing seems able to wipe the silly grin off his face as he gazes at his new toy. Joshua turns the robot on and it whirrs and hums. Rina sees in the corner of her eye a little door, an aperture, opening up in the robot’s chest and the robot’s hand starts moving toward it.
Rina: Grenade!
Rina throws herself at Joshua and tackles him to the floor. Wham! He’s completely surprised but willing to have her on top of him. Rina looks up to put eyes on the threat and sees the robot moving still reaching toward the widening door in its chest. Damn, the thing is still coming for them. She draws her gun and shoots the robot.
The bullet goes right through the little door, shatters the little bottle of champagne waiting inside, and the beverage sprays the robot’s innards. FIZZZZT! SPARK! KSHHH! The robot stutters to a halt, reduced to an expensive paperweight. Everyone else jumps back—auggh!—and when the smoke clears, we find the bullet has passed right through it.
Well, there’s no returning it now.
Joshua’s going to be stuck paying 99 credits for the next 16 months for something he can’t even use. Rina examines the thing and finds no weapons on it at all—shame on her—and also gauges the damage. She thinks she can fix it. It’s not like she’s going to have much else to do. It’s pretty sure she’s in the doghouse with Joshua. Yikes. Kiera thinks this turn of events rather funny and she laughs long and deep.
Kiera: (wiping tears) Now that made me happy.
Nika: (quoting Rick) That’s not a robot!
Arden: Now it’s just a big doorstop.
Joshua: (upset) I hate all of you.
Arden: I would like to point out that I had nothing to do with this.
Nika: It’s not on me, either.
Rina starts cleaning up the mess as the others rib Joshua and gets the robot to her workshop. Maybe when it’s fixed Joshua will forgive her. Maybe. Beglan is coming with us as trainer-engineer for the installation of the power stations we’re contracted to deliver and set up, and he readily agrees to help Rina repair the robot. Robot stowed for the nonce, we complete our preparations for lift-off for Newhope in Georgia system. It’s a three week trip and our ETA is Thursday, 23 October, 2521.
En route to Newhope
As Beglan works with Rina on the robot repairs, she discovers he’s somewhat more scholarly than the stereotypical junior fuel engineer and Rina and he have lots to talk about. He tells her that he was going to be an astronomer but the war intervened, interrupting his studies.
On the flight over, Nika makes good on her promise to have that talk about the Chempliant and she draws Arden aside in private to have it.
Nika: You don’t think I needed to know that. You think I didn’t need to know that?
Arden: I thought you knew it. It wasn’t a secret.
Nika: Why would I know that?
Arden: Because I was actively seeking Chempliant to use on myself.
Nika: I had no clue that was going on.
Arden: I was doing it out in front of everyone.
Nika: You have not been injecting yourself with anything in front of me.
Arden: No, I wanted to save it for an emergency. But I have been seeking it use it on myself.
Nika: I had no idea that you were even looking for it.
Arden: Now please don’t take this the wrong way, but it’s not my fault you were being obtuse.
Nika: So Chempliant turns you into the Energizer Bunny and—
Arden: I’m immune to it.
Nika: No. Clearly you’re not!
Arden: Let me finish. (a beat) I’m immune to the mind effecting parts of it, however it speeds up my lymphatic and neuro-electrical systems, so that I move faster.
Nika: (no joke!) Yeah!
Arden: And react faster.
Nika: I noticed!
Arden: And it gives me an edge.
Nika sighs. Of all the stupid, irresponsible …
Arden: I’m sorry I scared you. I’m sorry it surprised you. But it wasn’t intentional. I thought you knew about it.
Nika: No, I didn’t know you were doing experiments on yourself, Arden.
Arden: I wasn’t doing any experiments on myself. That’s why the last time we were on Pericles I had all those medical tests run on me.
Nika takes this in with a deep breath. Okay, he had tests done first. Not so stupid and irresponsible. But still! She swallows her upset and gets on with the next order of business. She calls Joshua and Rina into the meeting. Joshua immediately apologizes for his lapse as her XO, explaining that this project of Arden’s predated his elevation to XO position and it completely slipped his mind to mention it to Nika.
Joshua: I’m sorry. I just forgot I hadn’t told you. I thought you knew.
Nika: Well, in addition to all of that, we have a passenger running about committing cold-blooded murder.
Meaning Kiera shooting the unconscious terrorist in the head.
Nika: Would we like to have a conversation about that? While she is not listening?
Joshua: (quietly) This is somehow shocking to you, Captain?
Nika: I am not happy with the situation.
Joshua: I did not say that it was happy or planned, I did say surprised.
Nika: It actually did shock me to see her do that.
Arden: I’m surprised on one hand that she actually did it. And I’m surprised on another hand that she hasn’t done it before now.
Nika: Look, the fact that the woman can kill is not a shock.
Arden: Well, most of us can do that.
Nika: The fact that he was down and completely unconscious and she put a bullet in his head—?
Arden: And then laughed.
Nika: And then laughed? Yeah, no. That sort of disturbs me. On a number of levels.
Rina: The laugh part kinda creeped me out. Everything else seemed very practical to me.
Nika: She’s relatively pragmatic but let me phrase it to you this way: you people bitched a blue streak—(to Joshua) well not you, you weren’t here—when I put a bullet in a man who was conscious—
Arden: I didn’t.
Rina: I didn’t bitch a blue streak at you.
Nika glares.
Rina: But. Anyway …
Arden: Be that as it may …
Joshua: Look—
Nika: Because he could have been a threat to us. (hooks a thumb aft at Yan Wo) That guy was no threat whatsoever.
Joshua: Once again, I didn’t say I was happy with it.
Nika: (to Rina) You wouldn’t have done it.
Rina doesn’t answer right away.
Rina: (quietly) Maybe not.
Nika: (steely) Almost entirely certain, not.
Arden: It’s one line we’ve never crossed.
Nika: No one on this crew but me has ever crossed that line.
Arden: That you know of.
Joshua: I was about to say …
Nika: Not while we’ve been together.
Rina: (grimly) That, I’ll grant you.
Nika: Not in the years we’ve been together.
Rina: Well, wait a minute. Grimes.
Joshua: What’s that again?
Everyone goes quiet.
Rina: (sighing) … Anyway …
Arden: Why is she giving me malicious hate-glances every five minutes?
There is no telling. We break up the meeting before Kiera notices us missing and fly on to Newhope.
Thursday, 23 Oct 2521
Gibraltar, Newhope
Georgia (Huang Long) system
0930 hrs, local time
Byshek is happy to see us and happier still to see the money we owe him. We meet him at his restaurant in Gibraltar. After the money is delivered, he leans back in his chair and says:
Byshek: Is long time it took for this day to come.
Arden: At least it came.
Nika: It’s been a while since we’ve been back to Georgia.
Byshek: But I feel you owe me favor.
Nika: That depends what the favor is.
Because Russian Mafiya and favors owed generally aren’t … salutary to the parties owing them. Even so, Joshua chuckles.
Joshua: (grinning) I like you in a weird sort of way.
Byshek: (grinning back) I have a cargo pick up due to go to Meadow. I could have one of my own shis to take it, but I have some business issues on Meadow, where it is not the most convivial environment for me.
Rina: (wryly) Tell me about it.
Joshua: So what is it?
Byshek: You take my package to Meadow, you drop it off where it must be dropped off. We .. how do you say it …?
Joshua: Anything illegal we should be on—I don’t know what it is, but I just want to know if we need to be—
Arden: I don’t even care if it’s illegal. I just want to know how much we’re getting paid for doing it.
Byshek: Well, Meadow is Independent.
Joshua: That’s fine. So long as I don’t need to be worried about being intercepted by ships of one brand or the other.
Byshek: I don’t think you need to worry about that.
Arden: And how much are we getting paid for this?
Nika: The people who we’re bringing it to aren’t going to shoot us on arrival are they?
Byshek: No, no. They are friends of mine.
Arden: That doesn’t really help. They’re not going to shoot us on arrival, are they?
Byshek: When have I ever had issue with you?
Arden: Just now. You told us we owed you a favor.
Byshek: That’s because you take what—how many months, five months to pay me?
Arden: At least you got it to begin with.
The rest of the crew step in at this point to restrain Arden’s mouth.
Joshua: Okay, hold on.
Nika: Chill.
Rina: Chill.
Joshua: That is not helping the negotiations, so to speak.
Nika: (agreeing) No. I’m willing to take the favor, I just want to make sure that if we go, we’re not walking into a situation where you owe these people money and they’re going to turn around and take it out on us.
Byshek: No. No. It’s with the authorities. You, you neutral party. They are not going to take.
Nika: Okay. Fine.
Byshek: And half of Meadow is corrupt, anyway.
Nika: Three-quarters of Meadow, by this day.
Byshek: I could probably go over there and just pay them the money, but I don’t like to spend any money I don’t have to.
Joshua: How much are we looking at.
Byshek: I think it is … two containers. That’s what, fifty tons?
Joshua: Okay. And how far away is Meadow from here?
Byshek: Four days. Four,five days. A hop, skip, and jump.
Joshua: All right.
Nika: Yeah.
Byshek gives us the coordinates for our destination.
Nika: There’s nothing volatile in the containers? Nothing that’s going to … ?
Byshek: As far as I know there is nothing like that.
Nika: Fine.
Arden: Is there a med comp I can buy here?
Nika: Let’s hit Boros. You can find one there. We’re headed that way.
Boros is famous for its high-quality tech and electronic salvage. Better chances of finding what he needs there. And there’s also the robot Rina and Beglan are repairing. They can shop their wish list for robot repairs once there, too. Kiera inserts a request in the planning.
Kiera: Since this is gonna be a short hop for you guys, would you drop my container off off so I can make some money while y’all are gone?
Nika: Where? Here on Newhope?
Kiera: Mm-hm.
Nika: Yeah, if you want to stay on Newhope.
Arden: Are we coming back for you?
Kiera: Figured you might swing on by, it’s just a four day trip one way.
Nika: Yeah. All right. How long you want to be on Newhope?
Kiera: Whatever it takes y’all to drop it off.
Nika: Well it’s gonna take us the four days there and four days back, that’ll give you a week—
Kiera: I guess I get a week of playin’.
Nika: We had also considered on stopping by on Boros while we were in the system.
Kiera: I could wait for you, too.
Nika: All right. We’ll figure out what’s going on and we’ll send you a wave. Good luck.
No muss, no fuss. Everybody’s happy.
We part company with Kiera and leave Gibraltar to pick up the cargo. Rina, Joshua and Beglan disengage two of our containers to make room for the two we’ll be taking on. We’re just double checking the connections, getting everything hooked up when out of one of the containers opens from the inside. A whole bunch of heavily armed people storm out and point their weapons at us and it’s clear as day what’s just happened. With a sense of the inevitable, a familiar figure steps out of the container.
It’s Joseph Potemkin. He’s looking rather pleased.
Potemkin: Ahhh, you’ve delivered my ship to me. After so many years.
No muss, no fuss. It sucks to be us.
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