Episode 501: Shakedown Cruise, Part Four

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Meanwhile Kiera’s grilling Chu inside.

Kiera: Who have you pissed off now?
Chu: I haven’t pissed off anyone.
Kiera: Then why is there a guy with a gun outside?

And outside:

Rina: (to self) He’s talking into his collar.
Nika: Rina.
Rina: Ma’am.
Nika: Make sure Kiera knows what the man outside is doing. Comm her and let her know he’s letting someone else know.
Rina: (on the comm) Kiera. Pick up.

Inside:

Kiera: (thumbs comm) Yeah.
Rina: Gunman here is callin’ in reinforcements. Do what you gotta do and get out.
Kiera: Is the guy with the gun staying here?
Rina: I doubt he’s orderin’ pizza.

Outside:

Nika: Rina. That is not helpful.

Inside:

Kiera: But—!
Chu: He’s calling in reinforcements?! Get out of my ship! Get out of my ship!
Kiera: Dammit! (stows comm) Hannibal, what if we take your patient? Where is he now? Him? Her? They? Who?
Chu: It’s not the way.
Kiera: I got a ship. It’s got good registration. We can get your patient off planet. And I need it in exchange for something else. I have somebody who needs eye surgery. It’s really important to me. I’ve got platinum. It is worth your time. I will owe you. I will get this guy off planet.

Chu sighs and shakes his head, waves his hands.

Chu: No, no. The patient has paid extra to not have anyone know.
Kiera: It doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know.
Chu: No, because you—
Kiera: I don’t know anything!
Chu: But you will have seen the patient.
Kiera: I’ll close my eyes.

Kiera tells him we have Equinox.

Kiera: We are a transport ship. We have the cargo space. We can hide the damned container inside the ship. No one will know.
Chu: You will know that there is a container with my patient on board.
Kiera: You can come on board the ship too for all I care.
Chu: Do you not understand? There’s a man with a gun. Who’s waiting for me. Because I know where the patient is.
Kiera: Ye-essss….
Chu: If I put the container on your ship, you will know where the container is. You will know where the patient is. My patient does not want people to know.
Kiera: Okay, how many times have we left them completely stoned on anesthesia and they’ve never known who was with them—
Chu: That was the plan!
Kiera: Exactly. It won’t matter then. He won’t know I was there. We get him tanked on anesthesia like we used to do, put him on board the ship—
Chu: (aghast) For a trip out in space somewhere?
Kiera: (fed up) Where were you taking him back to?

Chu hesitates and ping! Kiera knows.

Kiera: He’s not here, is he. (not a question) He’s not going to come off this ship.
Chu: (deflating) No.
Kiera: Well, then where were you going to take him to?
Chu: I have a place set aside.
Kiera: Well we’ll take our ship there. He’ll get there. We can get you back.
Chu: No. You can’t take your ship there. You can’t.

Chu starts pushing Kiera for the door.

Chu: I’m sorry. You must go. I’m getting paid enough by her. Your money means nothing to me.
Kiera: But, I mean— You— Arrghhh—!

Of all the times for Chu to be a donkey’s butt! Kiera knows she has five large in credits, which would be a fair sight more converted to platinum.

Kiera: I’ve got four large.
Chu: (a beat) …. Nah … (starts pushing again)
Kiera: Come on. You’ll have me do free work. Call me. (hands over card) I’m there. You know I’m good.
Chu: If you’re alive.
Kiera: I’ll be fine. What are they gonna think of anything?
Chu: I have enough problems without throwing in with one of your—
Kiera: If you say ‘hare-brained schemes’ so help me, I’ll punch you. I’ve never led you down a bad thing. We’ve worked good together. The only reason we broke apart was that, well, that planet. And account’a we stayed a little bit too long.
Chu: Speaking of staying too long.

More shoving for the door.

Kiera: Dammit, Hannibal. Come on! (sighs) Okay. I’m going to give you the berth number. And I think you oughta take advantage of it. I need you. If all else fails, here’s my point number. Contact me if we can do business where you’re not holding a person who’s gonna get you killed. (hands him her dropbox info)

And she stumbles out the door and down the stairs cussing.

Kiera: He’s a lā shǐ! You owe me my tā mā de sunglasses! (to Li) I want my tā mā de sunglasses! Sunglasses!

While Li scrambles up the stairs into Chu’s ship, Kiera stomps over to Rina and Nika waiting on the perimeter.

Kiera: Sunglasses aren’t ready yet.
Rina: I told you you should have gone to Lenscrafters. They’ll do it in about an hour.
Kiera: I can’t afford freakin’ Lenscrafters!
Rina: You get what you pay for. You’re such a cheapskate!

They start walking off, bickering and taking Nika carefully in hand. Not that she needs any help finding where they are. You can hear Kiera and Rina bitchin’ about sunglasses all the way back to where the man with the gun waits outside Chu’s ship. He fades back into the shadows but doesn’t leave. He watches the women walk (and argue) away. Rina casts a cautious eye back at the man and sees him talking into his collar.

Rina: (murmuring) That collar is going to be a problem.
Kiera: Well, you can just shoot him in the head and there won’t be a collar problem anymore. (a beat) Or you can shoot him in the collar and there really won’t be a collar problem anymore.
Nika: Do. Not. Pull a weapon. Under any circumstances.
Kiera: Yes, ma’am, but I don’t have one. So.
Nika: Did I say your name? I did not.
Kiera: Ah ha.
Rina: Yes, ma’am. (moves on) He could be law enforcement.
Nika: You wanna tell me what went on up there?
Kiera: Hannibal is up there. He’s got a patient. Tall, dark and lovely is interested. (hooks a thumb back at the landing bay) And would like to get ahold of it. I told Hannibal to switch the patient the patient to our ship, so I have Hannibal, and we’ll get him off. Off the planet somehow.
Nika: Okay.
Kiera: Because if we don’t, we don’t have Hannibal. And apparently it’s somebody who’s paid him enough money that he is freaked out and very nervous. And it’s somebody important enough that tall, dark and ugly is casing. Obviously with a talking collar.
Nika: Now, is the guy on the ground the bodyguard of the person?

Good question.

Kiera: Uhhh, no. The guy on the ground is probably the assassin who would like to kill the person. Hannibal knows where he is.
Nika: I didn’t think that Hannibal changed identities in that fashion. I thought that was you.
Kiera: It could be me. But it’s not this time. The operation switches. You trade out. It’s not always the same people.
Nika: Okay.

Besides (Kiera goes on to tell Nika), an eye-replacement specialist like Chu would be in demand for those wishing to avoid getting tagged by retinal scans—a feature found in nearly every scanning package used in the Core. Though less prevalent on the Rim, the scanners are built into natural bottlenecks like doors and entranceways just about everywhere in the Core. IR, invisible to the naked eye. Some types of sunglasses are known to block the scans and Chu’s container kiosk suddenly makes a lot of sense.

Nika: So, the way I understand it based on the way you said it to me, he has a patient in the process of running from a bunch of assassins who are waiting for both him and his doctor to come down the stairs?
Kiera: Yes.
Nika: That’s kinda retarded, actually.
Kiera: Mm-hm.
Nika: Right. So you’re suggesting that the patient is … ?
Kiera: Well, no. Not on board. But he’s got him somewhere. What they’re trying to find out from Hannibal is where he is. (No, wait…) She is. He finally let slip: she. It was he. It’s now a she. He’s given me both sexes.

She used to be a ‘he’? As in ….? No. Relax. Chu only does eyes.

Kiera: So what do you want to do? He’s got our berth number. He’s got my contact information. He would be crazy not to jump with us. They’re stalking the ship. If he takes off, they’ll blow him out of the sky.
Nika: And what’s to stop them from doing that to us?
Kiera: If he does it smart, we go get the person, because won’t know he belongs to us.
Nika: And we’ll take off without Hannibal first.
Kiera: Yeah.
Nika: Okay.
Kiera: How would they know? We’re just a ship who came in and … (mimes flying away)

Kiera and Rina are walking and leading Nika, true, but they are also both of them a mite twitchy.

Kiera: I’m not 100% sure but I think we’re being followed.
Rina: Of course. You are never alone. That’s Moscow Rule #4.
Kiera: Y’all go on. And see. And I’m gonna drag behind and go shopping for a while.
Rina: All right. Stay in touch. Tell us if we’re being followed.

Rina takes Nika’s elbow and together they make it back to Equinox. Rina thinks they might have shaken off any tails they might have had … but one can never be sure. Kiera looks into the last of the stores as they close, seeing what’s there. And looking for tails. She lingers at window shopping for about forty minutes before turning for home. She’s also hoping that it’s given Chu enough time to think her offer over and that he’ll call her when she’s still out … but not a peep. She finally wanders in and when she boards Equinox, Nika is there with a question.

Nika: What exactly did you promise him?
Kiera: I told him I would probably give him free services if he’s willing to help and I told him we would get that girl off planet.
Rina: Gee, that sounds an awful like how we met you the first time, rescuing someone off the planet. Nice to know some things never change.
Kiera: I don’t even know who I’m rescuing this time. At least the last time I thought I was doing something good.
Nika: I’m not sure we want to know who we’re rescuing.
Kiera: I don’t want to know. He does not want us to know. We do not want to know.
Nika: We could do it quite simply as long as his container is set up.

Off to the side, Arden says to Joshua and Beglan.

Arden: Does it bother you in any way that we don’t know what they’re talking about?
Beglan: Does somebody need rescuing?
Kiera: No, not really. They need to be escorted off the planet without us really knowing who we’re escorting.
Nika: We don’t need to know who it is.
Joshua: Why?
Kiera: Because it’s just bad to know who it is?
Joshua: Why?
Kiera: Because, well, I got the feeling if we knew who they were, that would be bad. Not to mention. Hannibal said it’s dangerous. I don’t see how us knowing who it is—
Joshua: I don’t necessarily want to know who it is. What I want to know is, why is it dangerous to know this person. Is it because that people outside this person want to kill him or is it the person who doesn’t want anyone to know?
Nika: Well, I don’t know but there’s a guy standing beneath the ship with a big freakin’ gun.
Kiera: The person who is having the surgery done, doesn’t want anybody but Hannibal to know who she is. The person who’s outside of the ship—we’ll say attached, because he kept talking to his collar—would like to know where she is. Hannibal is currently the only person who knows where she is. And obviously the people on the ground know who she is, because they wanna kill her. Unless they just randomly want to shoot people.
Nika: Or they want to kidnap her. You don’t know exactly what that story is all about.
Beglan: Or they could be Federal Marshalls.
Rina: That’s right. I mentioned that but no one heard me. I said maybe it was law enforcement.
Joshua: Why would this person be a … It seems more like a watch instead of an assassin. You know, I don’t care.
Nika: And yes, there was a certain amount of jumping to conclusions, there.
Kiera: And the truth is, Hannibal was talking quickly. He’s a little freaked out.
Nika: Well if it’s the law, Hannibal would not be so much worried about somebody killing him. That would be my assumption here. But that could be incorrect because I don’t know Hannibal.
Joshua: It doesn’t really matter to me. I’m not worried about the law.
Nika: Then what are you worried about.
Joshua: I’m more worried about that Mystery Person X is going to have this done and then wipe everybody clean that happens to know anything about it, versus Mystery Person Y who wants to kill Mystery Person X. Which is a whole different situation.

Wow. And we call Rina paranoid?

Kiera: But if he never lets us see what’s in the container. Or who or what—
Rina: We’ve got deniability.
Joshua: (to Kiera) Didn’t you say you were a criminal element person at one point? Don’t people like that—
Kiera: Actually, I’m pretty sure that I still am.

After all, if there were a passenger inside a container for the duration of a two week journey somewhere, nobody would believe for a second we never found out at some point what we were carrying. And that would be good enough to get us killed for it. Right?

Joshua: Potemkin, when he was pissed off at somebody, attempted to wipe an entire town clean with a dirty bomb. If this person is trying to make sure nobody’s seen him, I’m pretty sure he’ll have no hesitation to say, well they might have seen us at one point or another…

He mimes slitting his throat with his finger.

Kiera: Right now, unless he contacts us, that is a good point.
Nika: Joshua.
Joshua: Yes, Captain?
Nika: He doesn’t want her money.
Kiera: And I offered a big piece of it.
Joshua: He doesn’t want your money? Why?
Kiera: Whatever he’s being paid is a lot more than four large.
Nika: In any case, he doesn’t want her money because what he’s got right now is a bigger job than us.
Arden: You don’t know that.
Joshua: He doesn’t want your money at all?
Kiera: I’m sure he’d take it but unless he contacts me the point’s moot. I left him my contact information. I left him the berth of our ship. He is fully capable of negotiating me up.
Joshua: Until his client is fleeing, after he’s performed the surgery… not that we care about that.

After all, the reason we looked Chu up was to have him fix Nika’s eyes, not offer the man a clandestine ride off the freakin’ planet over a shady customer of his. Arden surfs the local cortex for news about any gossip as to what’s going on. Meanwhile, Joshua asks a few more questions. Like:

Joshua: How much longer is Hannibal going to be around?
Kiera: Not long.
Nika: He was not a happy camper to be on the ground.
Joshua: And what did you offer him?
Kiera: Basically I offered him the standard rate. He knows he can go higher on it.
Arden: Why don’t you call him up and offer him the choice that he do the work or we can turn him in.
Nika: Arden.
Kiera: Yes, that will help me in the future and probably get me shot. Thank you.

Joshua tries to sum up.

Joshua: Okay, so maybe I’m reading this wrong but Hannibal has this client who’s got him moderately spooked—
Kiera: Very.
Joshua: Let’s say very spooked and he’s getting a lot of money. But you offered him the going rate to dump the client—?
Kiera: No, not to dump the client, because he’s not going to. That’ll ruin his rep. He can’t dump this person.
Nika: She offered him the money in addition to us taking the client wherever the client wants to go.
Arden: You could have offered to leave him at whatever planet he’s going to next.
Beglan: So … I’m not really familiar with all this stuff works but if people would go to someone such as yourself or this doctor, it’s because … why? They don’t like the way they look?
Arden: Because other people didn’t like the way they looked.
Kiera: Well, no. They like the way they look, they just want to stop looking the way they look because other people know who they were.
Beglan: So it’s to change their identity.
Kiera: Absolutely.
Beglan: And so … if you were working such a client and somebody you knew walked up and said, hey I’d like to take that person off your hands, and you would think … sure? Because, this person came to me as other people were after … her. So I’m going to drop you off with the first people come looking for her. Right?
Joshua: That’s a fair point. I see what he’s saying.
Beglan: Why would Chu not think we were trying to get her like the rest of them? Because there’s a … what do you call it? A booty on their head?

A bounty. A bounty on her head.

Kiera: So he thinks I’m trying to steal her and turn her in.
Beglan: Would that … would that be outrageous?
Kiera: No. It wouldn’t be outrageous. Not with Hannibal.
Beglan: But you said you were friends with this man.
Kiera: Eh. As much as you can be friends with these people. All right. Fair enough.

Kiera suggests leaving a message at Chu’s berth to meet her at a bar.

Joshua: Excuse me but didn’t you just say Chu wouldn’t leave the ship.
Kiera: He might meet me at night.
Nika: Not if there’s a guy standing out there with a gun.
Kiera: That’s true. But I can’t go back. That’s the other thing. I will have gone back twice.
Arden: I never thought I would miss him that much.

Who? Christian? Mike Carter?

Arden: No, Rick. Rick Allen.
Beglan: (brightens!) You know Rick Allen? I used to watch that show religiously.
Rina: (grins) Oh, Captain Awesome.
Joshua: Okay, tell me this. How do you convince—if what Beggar’s said is on the money—how do you convince Hannibal that you’re not out to …
Nika: Out to snake his bounty.
Joshua: It’s not a bounty, per se. It’s just his rep not only depends on not dropping his client but making sure his client’s identity is changed.
Kiera: The only other thing we can do is take Nika to him and let him take possession of Nika.
Rina: I was there five minutes ago.
Kiera: You could take her and then when he takes off we would just have to know where he was going. I mean, that’s a lot of trust—.
Arden: That’s not going to happen.
Joshua: Why?
Arden: Because I don’t trust him.
Beglan: Especially if he’s being watched, that could be interesting.
Kiera: Well … yeah. Or we can just kill the guy watching him. You could just shoot the guy in the head. Obviously he’s too busy talking into his collar to—

And that sets the cat amongst the pigeons. Just about everybody cuts loose with one scenario after another, involving ninjas and blazing guns and swashbucklery. Why the hell not? Rina raises her voice over the crowd.

Rina: Since we’re descending into the Kingdom of Silly here, I’m just going to throw out another idea. Why don’t we do something like a shell game?
Joshua: A what?
Arden: A shell game?
Rina: Let me finish.
Arden: Just looking for verification of what you said.
Rina: All right. Hannibal’s ship is being watched because there’s someone aboard and—(God give her strength)—All right, I’ll just cut to the chase.
Joshua: Please.

She tries to explain but Nika picks up immediately what she means and improves on it. Why not send Joshua to Chu to find out who the guy on the ground is so we can find out what the hell we’re getting ourselves into? The surveillance man hasn’t seen Joshua’s face yet. We have a cosmetician and Joshua’s skill at disguises. That should be enough to conceal Joshua’s identity. Find out who the man is.

Joshua: And replace him?
Arden: By shooting him in the head.
Joshua: Please. Stop with the shooting in the head.
Arden: I was joking.
Beglan: If he’s the law, we’ll lead the law to him. If he’s an assassin, we …
Nika: I’m not sure that it matters in that regard, but it would give us a little bit more leverage in dealing with Hannibal, perhaps.
Rina: Intel.
Beglan: But it would also give them intel.
Nika: Why?
Beglan: Because they’ll know you’re asking questions.
Nika: Joshua doesn’t have to ask questions.
Rina: (groks it) That’s right.
Arden: Just send the guy who’s off his meds to ... (you know).
Joshua: It’s only three days.
Kiera: He can also find out whether or not we can drop off and Hannibal’s willing to give us the coordinates where he’s going to land the ship. He is not going to stay here much longer. So we either—
Nika: This isn’t your call to make.

She looks at Joshua. It’s his call.

Joshua: Can I— sorry …
Kiera: I’m open to suggestions.
Joshua: So… Hannibal … he’s looking to leave, right? And his primary goal is to leave without his watchers knowing where he is going?

Well, there might be more factors involved here. For instance, if he were done, he’d have already left Athens. Something must be holding him here. The obvious answer is: his client.

Joshua: So his client is somewhere on planet?
Kiera: One would assume.
Joshua: Somewhere within driving range?
Beglan: Probably.
Kiera: The container is not here and the ship is not leaving. Obviously, it’s parked there.

‘There’ being where the client is.

Rina: Is there any way we can lo-jack Hannibal?
Joshua: Okay, stop lo-jacking people!
Kiera: I … I wouldn’t even know how to do that.
Joshua: Shouldn’t our goal be to get Hannibal out from under the thumb of the watchers long enough to get him somewhere to finish the job? Why don’t we remove the watcher from the equation but we don’t have to shoot him in the head. I’d just like say that again, clearly up front: No. (a beat) You saw what he looked like, right? What’s his build? Roughly?

Why not give the watcher something to watch. Like …. his target. Only … not. Kiera gets it immediately: make Joshua look like Hannibal and get the watcher to follow Joshua. We’ll have one of the crew follow Joshua as back up while the rest of the crew evacs Hannibal from his ship. Having given the watchers the slip, Hannibal should be free to finish his job with his client and then help Nika.

In other words, we’re pulling a shell game.

It falls into place fairly quickly after that. Rina will shadow Joshua as back up. Arden will be the getaway driver if we need one. Kiera closets herself with Joshua to affect the change and when they’re done, he’ll step off the ship looking like Chu.

Kiera: You’re gonna have to pull—you know, I don’t even know if I’ve got anything in my head to even help you with his personality.
Joshua: I don’t need his personality. I just need to look like him. You can give me five minutes of description. You had a conversation with him, right? Give me five minutes of that description.

What he gets is a small Chinese man going 200 miles an hour, freaked out. And after five minutes, Joshua is able to mimic him.

As for the disguise, even though Potemkin kept the sonic caelum for himself and we recovered it undamaged aboard the Equinox, we don’t have the time to use it. Chu’s ready to bolt any moment. Even if they only had a grainy surveillance photo for reference, the bruises from the caelum would give Joshua away. So we’re back to old school disguises—make up, fake teeth, hair pieces, that sort of thing.

Before we go, we finalize the details.

Once we’ve lured John Q. Law or whoever it is off of Hannibal’s ship, Chu will be free to take off to go where he needs to take of his client. Rina will shadow Joshua as his back up. Kiera and Arden will stay with Chu and relay his movements to Nika and Beglan on Equinox. We can fly Lagniappe to meet Chu wherever he ends up. Unless it’s somewhere in town, at which point we can drive out to meet him. Beggar can fly Lagniappe, but he’s hesitant to fly.

Beglan: I didn’t like the last trip.
Nika: You did very very well on the last trip. Don’t worry about it.
Belgan: I don’t know the wind patterns here in Athens.
Nika: We do not have wind shear here like we did in that canyon. I’m sorry. That was my fault.
Rina: (waitaminute) What happened?
Joshua: I don’t want to know any more. (warning look at Rina) I don’t want to know any more.
Rina: (to Nika) I was wondering when you were going to mention that.
Nika: I was not.

Still hasn’t, technically. Rina will just have to fret over that one. Prepping for departure, Rina gets some trank patches from Kiera to use on the watcher if needed. After all—she’s been begged by Joshua not to kill anyone. So. Patches. Down in the hold, Arden warms up our flatbed mule and takes her for a few tight turns around the hold for good measure. Yup. Engine’s spinning like a top. Kiera takes the chance that Chu’s lines aren’t tapped and gives him a call.

There’s no answer. She hangs up. A minute later, the comm buzzes and it’s Chu on the other end of the line.

Chu: What do you want?
Kiera: We’re going to get rid of your friend.
Chu: What are you talking about? Which friend?
Kiera: The one that’s outside. Your customer who’s really annoying.
Chu: You’re … going to get rid of my customer?
Kiera: No! Not that one. The one outside.
Chu: Ah!
Joshua: I’m going to freaking slap every one of you if you do not actually say what you mean for five seconds.

Joshua’s standing right behind her on the bridge and Kiera cuts an eyeroll. Hello, this isn’t a secure comm line. Kiera fills Chu in: We’ll arrive with Joshua looking like Chu, with Nika in tow. We’ll enter his ship, and Joshua will be seen to leave, drawing off the watcher to follow him into town.

Kiera: That should free you up.
Chu: To do what?
Kiera: I don’t know because you won’t tell me. I don’t know where you’re going. Do you need to go? Either way I need to talk to you and you need to see her and I need to pay you. I will pay you whatever it takes.
Chu: Whatever?
Kiera: (exasperated) A) I am not going to sleep with you and B) yeah, there’s a limit to the cash I can get my hands on.
Chu: You’re not my type.

Ow! Everybody’s on the bridge by now and hears the insult. Double ow!

Chu: Hmm … perhaps … 6?
Kiera: Don’t quite have 6. Have 5.
Chu: And so you … take away my shadow and … 5?
Kiera: Mm-hm.
Chu: And you have patient who needs … ?
Kiera: I have patient who needs your expertise. I will throw in a free face change if you ever need it. You have my contact. And I won’t ask any money for it.
Chu: I don’t plan on being here for long. If you can … get rid of him, take your patient to …

Kiera frantically starts writing this down.

Chu: (continuing) … to the …. fountain in the agora. I will meet you there and take her. But only her.
Kiera: No, there’s a companion that’s got to go with her.
Chu: Then I will not do it.

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