Episode 505: Stand and Deliver, Part Four

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Parker Duquesne: So … it appears that the situation has changed a little bit. Are we all good? You’re looking at me like we’re not all good.

Joshua hits the comms for the cargo hold again.

Joshua: How badly are they hurt?
Nika: (at the comm) Can we roll them down the ramp and just let them lay there?
Kiera: Yeaaahhh. I would. A kinder gentle person might not.
Joshua: No, no, no. Not you would. Are they going to die if you leave them behind here?
Kiera: Oh, no. Not at all.

Well, to be sure, they’d burn to ash from our engines when we blast out of here.

Nika: Did they get off a call?
Kiera: Not that I can tell—Rina?
Rina: Yes.
Kiera: (relaying) Yes.
Nika: I gotta do some spin control on the bridge. (leaves)
Joshua: Good luck with that. I’m going down to the cargo bay.
Kiera: Could you send Arden down? I would feel better if we could at least plaster—
Joshua: Nope. He’s busy.
Kiera: He’s—? Oh. He hasn’t broken the landlock yet? Tell Lazybutt to get his butt here.
Joshua: I’m not telling him that. (keys the bridge) She says you’re doing a good job.

Arden just keeps on hacking. Almost there … Back in the hangar deck Joshua notices that both the Duquesnes have donned pistols in holsters. He can’t blame them, because in all fairness they did hear us announce on all-ship we were going to throw them to the wolves. He makes tracks down to the cargo bay to see what’s happened down there. The Duquesnes follow him down. When they all arrive, Kiera sees the pistols and raises her rifle to cover them. Rina sees them too and growls at them.

Rina: Don’t you two recognize a fake-out ploy when you hear one?
Parker Duquesne: (dubious) Is this the fake out?

Kiera follows the man’s gaze. Sees what he sees. Two men on the floor, unconscious? One of them zip-tied and the other bloodied with a broken arm? Kiera kneels again at the Sheriff and checks his arm. She slaps a trank patch on him to put him deeper under. She’s not going to want him coming awake anytime soon. Setting his arm right is going to take a while. Rina’s done a major number on it. It’s shattered and it’s going to need pins.

Joshua: (to the Duquesnes) You’re on board. (to Kiera) Is he going to die?
Kiera: No.
Joshua: (to Rina) And he’s just hog-tied.
Rina: No, he’s not.

He isn’t really. Hog tying involves tying the wrists and the ankles together from behind, and then connecting the wrists and ankles, rendering the subject helpless. A difference in detail that apparently only Rina cares about.

Joshua: Whatever he is—stop arguing with me. They made a call to their guys. Are their guys out there?
Rina: He said they’ve got something happenin’ here. Or words to that effect. I couldn’t get to him fast enough. I’m sorry.
Joshua: (to Kiera) Get him prepped to be moved off the ship.

Joshua hits the wall comm next to the stairs.

Joshua: Captain? It’s about as under control here as it currently can be. I don’t know if they’ve got more people outside.
Nika: It’s the big gun thing I’m concerned about.

Cuz she’s looking right at it through the bridge windows. In the cargo hold, Kiera looks up from the Sheriff she’s tending.

Kiera: Tell Arden to send down some medical tape. I’m gonna need it to tape his arm to his side.
Rina: I’ve got duct tape right here. (pulls it out of her coveralls)
Joshua: (off Kiera’s look) Consider it combat medicine. Arden’s busy. So … since the truck is no longer outside and they’ve got that big gun on us, when we’re ready to leave we’ll just casually open our cargo bay doors and casually move the Sheriff and the … hog tied, wire-wrapped, however you want to say it … off the ship and casually fly away.

Can you hear the sarcasm? Oh, yes you can.

Kiera: You know, if you don’t move them out of the blast zone, they’re gonna fry.
Joshua: We’ll move them out of the blast zone. We’ll just do it very quickly.
Rina: We’ll move them on the flatbed.

Meanwhile Arden’s tapping away at the keys when FWOOM! our ship is hit by something big. No one is strapped down. Everyone is slammed to the deck. Arden claws up from the floor and hits the all-ship.

Arden: We’re taking fire.

Kiera peels herself off the deckplates and comms him back.

Kiera: (sarcastic) Is that what it is?
Arden: You know, this was all resolved. Until.

So much for matters being resolved. And thanks to that hit on our ship, everyone aboard has taken wound and stun from the impact.

Joshua: Okay. That was our cue to put the two of them on the flatbed, open the door, and—
Rina: Working on it.
Joshua: Work on it a little faster.
Rina: Gimme a hand.

She’s got the guard by his ankles and is trying to drag him to the aforementioned flatbed. Joshua gives her a hand and together they get the job done. The flatbed loaded, they hit the button for the cargo bay doors. As they whine toward the ground, we hear Beglan say blearily over the all-ship:

Beglan: I think we took a hit of some kind…

On the bridge, Nika hauls up beside Arden.

Nika: Tell me you’re gonna break that landlock soon. (comms engineering) Beggar. Get us spun all the way up. (keys off) Otherwise, I’m gonna have to literally rattle the ship apart to get us of the ground.
Arden: For about the five seconds before we—
Nika: Well, yeah, but you know what? I’d rather tear us apart than have them shoot us apart.
Arden: You know it would have been so much simpler if we’d just—never mind.
Nika: Bitch at me later.
Arden: It’s not you I want to bitch at.
Nika: Bitch at me later.

Joshua, Kiera and Rina take the mule beyond the blast range of our engines and carefully off-load the Sheriff onto the dirt. The guard is wearing armor, so they simply roll him off the mule and let him lay where he drops. We get back into the mule and start her up. Joshua eyes the gun across the way.

Joshua: We’re gonna die. Maybe.

On the bridge, Nika hails the other ship.

Nika: I highly recommend y’all stop shootin’ or I’m gonna put a bullet in your guy’s head.

The response is another missile hit on Equinox. Outside, Rina, Kiera and Joshua duck and the mule veers wildly. Joshua steadies his hand on the wheel and brings her back on course for Equinox. Kiera gives him a stiff poke and growls in his ear.

Kiera: Joshua we have got to go and mess up that missile launcher before there ain’t nothin’ to come home to.
Joshua: That isn’t going to happen. We are not—
Kiera: Why? It is going to be blown apart. All we gotta do is mess up their aim.
Joshua: How do you plan to do that?
Kiera: Just push it slightly.

Rina eyes the damage. It’s not minor. And there’s something else—she saw some weird lights sparkling on impact and her military experience tells her it was an electric pulse weapon.

Rina: They EMP’d us, the svolochi.

Sure enough, on the bridge—over the entire ship—everything goes dark. Arden types frantically but the keyboard under his fingers goes dead.

Arden: I can’t hack anymore.

Outside, Joshua and Kiera are still at it.

Joshua: It’s a cannon on a military-armed ship. What are we gonna to push it with? This flatbed? Our hands?
Kiera: Why not? We can run the flatbed into the cannon.
Joshua: No!
Kiera: Why?!
Joshua: I said no.
Kiera: They’re going to blow the ship into tiny pieces!
Joshua: I’m going to trust in Arden to break the lock and for Nika to fly us out of here.
Rina: (grimly) No. We’re not going anywhere. They just killed our ship with an EMP, Joshua.
Joshua: Then … we’re boned but we are not about to—
Rina: There’s no point in assaulting the gun now. Let’s go back to the ship.

In Equinox’s engine room, Belgan’s rebooting the engines and getting something like emergency power online. It’s slow going. Parking the mule in the cargo bay, Joshua’s not finished talking.

Joshua: Well, you know … this might not have occurred had the search gone relatively smoothly. Had the search had gone smoothly, we might have had more time to break the lock, but for some reason—and I don’t know what it was, possibly it was you, possibly it was both of you. I wasn’t there, I can’t say—but somehow I got down to the cargo bay, the Sheriff no longer had a workable arm and the … the mercenary was tied up and minus his weapons. Now I’ve been told that can spontaneously happen, but I’ve never seen it occur so I have to assume it was the two of you.
Kiera: Sadly enough—
Joshua: So I don’t want to hear any bitching about how we aren’t going to go ram our flatbed into the cannon of the military ship across the way.
Rina: (off Joshua’s look) Don’t look at me when you say that.
Kiera: (continuing) Frighteningly enough, it wasn’t me.
Joshua: It ain’t happening.
Kiera: He wanted to arrest me. I figured, sure he could. I was going to grapple a little bit and I was fine with it.
Joshua: I don’t want to hear this story. (at Rina) You, to the engine room to do what we can do. (at Kiera) You—I don’t know what to do with you. Go make sure our passengers are still alive. That would probably be a good starting point. You go do that. I am going to go back up to the bridge and tell the Captain we’ll be ready to go whenever we’re … capable of going.

Which doesn’t look to be anytime soon. Despite the fact we’re spinning up our engines and the power’s steadily coming back online, the landlock is still on us. And the Duquesnes are still on our ship. Kiera finds them in the cargo bay and off Parker Duquesne’s look, she says as she comes up:

Kiera: Penny for your thoughts.
Parker Duquesne: Suǒyǐ, zhè shì yīchǎng zāinàn.

While she’s handling the passengers, Joshua’s up on the bridge giving his report.

Joshua: What’s our next step, Captain? Our engineer and our steward feel that we should take the flatbed and ram the cannon on the ship across the way.
Arden: (disgusted) Why don’t we nuke it from orbit? It’s the only way to be sure.

Arden’s pissed off and with good reason: That EMP wiped out all his work on the hack. He’s starting from scratch again. Nika says over her shoulder at him:

Nika: Get back to—(breaks off)
Arden: Hacking?

She doesn’t answer and Arden looks up to see her squinting out the bridge windows. Arden follows her line of sight and sees a shuttle launching from the other ship.

Arden: (I told you so!) Told you.
Kiera: (over the comms) Captain, can we stay dead so they they think we’re still dead instead of powering up?
Joshua: (low) Not at this point.
Nika: (comms back) Little late.
Keira: Grrrhhhahh!
Arden: Just wait, we can be dead.

Two decks down, Kiera snaps off the wall comm and growls a sigh. Behind her, Parker Duquesne speaks up.

Parker Duquesne: So are we havin’ our last stand? Is that the plan?
Kiera: Well, it wasn’t the initial plan.
Parker Duquesne: I know. You were originally planning on surrendering us over to the people who wanted us, and then you changed your mind—
Kiera: That wasn’t my plan either.
Parker Duquesne: We heard it on the radio. So is the plan now—I see since you took out the other guys that you’re planning on fighting now? Help me out. We want to know what to do. What’s to do?
Kiera: Can you do somethin’ to help?
Parker Duquesne: It depends on what the plan is. We can hide and keep quiet if that’s what we’re needed to do. Although I don’t think hiding in your hole is going to work at this time.
Kiera: Uhm-hm.
Parker Duquesne: Or we can fight if there’s fighting.
Kiera: Hold that thought. I’m gonna comm the Captain. (hits the comms) They’re volunteerin’ to fight if we’re makin’ a last stand.
Nika: (over the comm) I’m on my way down. There’s a shuttle inbound.
Kiera: Where do you want me put passengers?
Nika: Keep ’em out.
Kiera: Keep ’em out in the passengers lounge or keep ’em out near their shuttle?
Nika: (sighing) At this point any gunhand on hand, I’m happy to have. I’m hoping to parlay.
Kiera: Fair enough. (snaps of comm) All right. You heard the lady.

On the bridge, Arden says to Nika, his eyes on the keyboard.

Arden: (typing fast) Why don’t you stun the passengers and leave them on the tarmac? And let them have them? Maybe they’ll let us go with no charges. (a beat) Doubtful, but maybe.
Nika: (sighs) Yeah. If all they want is the bounty …
Joshua: Actually, almost certainly they want the bounty but I think more than that, they want them and the seeds. I’m guessing that’s the reason they’re such a big deal.
Nika: Look, this is all my fault—
Joshua: Who cares whose fault it is? Let’s just get through this.
Nika: At this point, I don’t know which way to go. Are we keepin’ them on board and lettin’ them help us fight? Or are we gonna … ? (a beat) … Joshua, I need you to make this call today.
Joshua: Give me three seconds to think about it so I don’t rush into a decision—(two seconds later)—Coming in, we got heavily armed mercenaries. The likelihood that we’ll get out of this alive—somebody’s going to get really hurt.
Arden: (intoning) And it’s gonna be us.
Joshua: It’s a good possibility it’s going to be us. If there was a moral standing, somewhere where I thought ‘gosh we should hold onto these people, they’re on the right side of things’, but from what I’ve seen, they’re basically just drug dealers. Polite and courteous drug dealers, but drug dealers nonetheless. On the other side of that, I really don’t like these mercenaries. They’re like Jing Jing Bei all over again, I’m tellin’ you...
Nika: See, and that’s exactly what got us into trouble in the first place.
Joshua: What? That I didn’t like them?
Nika: Mm-hm.
Joshua: Well that was more of a—
Nika: Cuz I then waffled around on what to do.

Two decks down, one of the polite and courteous drug dealers makes a suggestion.

Parker Duquesne: I did some service in the War and I might of some use if we’re having a fight, but it seems to me that escaping would be our best plan.
Kiera: That’s what I’d love to do but so far we haven’t had any luck breakin’ that landlock. How good are’ya? Could you do that?
Parker Duquesne: I might be able to but, ah …. do you have a decent rifle?
Kiera: Mm-hm.
Parker Duquesne: Can I use it? (to his wife) Don’t you have a … a distancing scope on your camera set-up?
Marion Duquesne: Yeah, but hon, it’s not military. It’s for taking photographs.
Parker Duquesne: I might be able to use it to take out that antenna on the tower.

Kiera hands him her rifle.

Kiera: Let’s go get that scope set up. See if we can go and take it out.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Nika’s hit on another idea. She leans over Arden’s shoulder.

Nika: Can we plug the Lagniappe’s computer into the Equinox’s computer and use its experimental computer to get us loose?

Arden thinks a moment. Our shuttle’s computer has a better processor, for one thing, an experimental version that’s supposed to be faster and smarter.

Arden: Maybe.
Nika: Can we tie the computers together?
Arden: No. We’ll have to swap the computers.
Nika: Pull it.
Arden: Can’t I go to the Langiappe and just do it there.
Nika: No you have to physically pull it and replace it. It’s just like yanking out the radio and swapping it.
Joshua: Hold on. It took Arden half an hour to try to hack it the first time. The shuttle is headed here now.
Nika: Yes, I know, but if we can keep them talking long enough for him to pull that and get it in place—(off Joshua’s look)—I don’t know what else to do.
Joshua: I got you. It just removes our escape options. If we pull the—(decides)—Arden. Go pull the Lagniappe’s computer.
Nika: (sighing) You and I’ll arm up.

Arden leaves the bridge to pull the computer off Lagniappe. Kiera comms the bridge again.

Kiera: Captain?
Nika: (keys comm) What?
Kiera: He used to be a sharpshooter in the Army. They’re goin’ to get the scope off her camera and we’re gonna let him use my rifle and could be could shoot out the antenna on the tower.
Nika: Beautiful. We’re pulling the Lagniappe’s computer to try to get at the landlock.
Kiera: Fair enough. One or the other’s gotta work. Let’s go.
Nika: What kind of sharpshooter is he?
Kiera: Military sharpshooter. We’re on our way up to the top hatch. As soon as he can get the scope.
Parker Duquesne: (walking up) If only we had some duct tape to attach this …
Kiera: We have medical tape if all else fails.

Kiera cuts the comm and they troop up to the crew deck for the hatch and duck onto the bridge. Nika turns when they walk in.

Nika: How good a shot are you?
Parker Duquesne: I was pretty good back in the day. It’s been, what? twelve years?
Nika: What kinda rifle you usin’?
Kiera: Mine. It’s one of the ship’s rifles. We don’t have any other rifles.
Nika: (to Duquesne) How long ago was it?
Parker Duquesne: How long ago was what? Oh, when I was in the war? (looks askance) You don’t remember the war?
Joshua: (grokking it now!) Captain, let him set up.
Nika: Why don’t you let me take the shot?

He pulls her aside and says low enough to keep it between themselves.

Joshua: Captain. While I—
Nika: Joshua. He’s got a scope.
Joshua: You can’t see, Captain. You’ve got nerve damage. Let him take the shot.
Nika: (sighs) Let him take the shot. If he doesn’t do it, I’ll try it.
Joshua: (Louder) Sir? Take the shot. And make it a good one.

Joshua takes up the comm and hails the engine room.

Joshua: Rina?
Rina: Yeah?
Joshua: Are we gonna be ready to spin up? In just a minute or two?
Rina: Yeah, but—.
Joshua: I just want to spin us up. I don’t want us repaired, I just want to spin us up. That’s all I want you to do. Make sure that when we need to spin up, we can spin up.
Rina: Will do.

The comm goes dead at her end. Thank you, ma’am. Behind him, Joshua can hear Nika say:

Nika: I will stay with him when he readies the shot because if he doesn’t make it, I will take it.
Joshua: I know, I know. Let the blind captain take the precise sniper shot.
Kiera: And if she doesn’t do it, I can take the shot.
Nika: Yeah, but if I take it, it’ll enhance my rep. If I took out a comm tower at a thousand yards half blind …
Kiera: I have faith.
Joshua: Look, we’ve got a military sharpshooter. Neither of you are military sharpshooters. (to Nika) You weren’t a military sharpshooter in the military, right?
Nika: Not qualified.
Parker Duquesne: Well … I’m not quite sure what we’re shooting for here.

And that shuttle is still inbound, in case anyone’s forgotten. And Arden’s still in Lagniappe getting the computer out to swap it. Kiera wants to go topside with the shooters as backup and their medic in case they get shot in turn. Joshua makes one last argument to keep Nika inside the ship.

Joshua: You need to be here on the bridge. Cuz we can’t fly this thing.
Nika: Yeah, all right.

She acquiesces and so Kiera and Parker Duquesne haul ass up the hatch to the top hull. Duquesne sets up the rifle and makes his calculations, aims, exhales, and squeezes off his shot. There’s not a lot of sound. He straightens.

Parker Duquesne: (quietly) Yeah. I think that did it.

Kiera scrambles down the ladder to the comm on the hangar deck and hails the bridge.

Kiera: Captain. I think he got it.

Great. Just one problem. We don’t have a computer to fly our ship with. Arden’s yanked the bridge computer and Lagniappe’s computer hasn’t been installed in its place yet. In fact, Arden’s still not arrived with the other computer. Nika has to decide to either to wait for Arden or reinstall the bridge computer herself.

Joshua: Trust in Arden. He’ll get here.

Meanwhile, Kiera’s getting Duquesne down from the top hatch and secures it. As she dogs it down for space flight, Arden hustles back onto the bridge with Lagniappe’s computer and he gets down on the deck and starts hooking it up. He works fast, then faster.

And just in time too, because a thoom! reverberates off our hull—that inbound shuttle has just landed on top of us. Nika grabs the comm.

Nika: Beglan, is our engine ready to go?
Arden: Unless the landlock was attached to our old CPU, we’ve still got to hack the landlock.
Nika: And we can’t check that til the computer comes back up.

Kiera’s checking the seal on the hatch and there’s a hiss and sparks start flying.

Kiera: Dammit! (yells down the tube) They’re cutting!

Nika starts cursing in Chinese. Kiera braces herself in the tube and brings her rifle up, ready to shoot the first person who pokes his head through our hatch. Joshua calls up the tube from the crew deck.

Joshua: Okay … if that’s opened up and we take off …
Kiera: As long as we don’t break atmosphere, we’re fine. It’s okay, I’m fairly certain our Captain can do that.

A hum goes through our girl as Rina and Beglan start powering our engines up. A exultant crow from Arden tells Nika the computer’s finally hooked up and the monitors flicker back to life a split second afterward.

Nika: Do we still have landlock?

No. Nika takes up the yoke and gets us off the ground. Kiera slaps her free hand against the access tube wall and yells down to Joshua.

Kiera: Somebody tell the passengers to strap down!

Nika lifts our girl straight up and flips on the external PA.

Nika: I’m giving you two and a half seconds to get off my ship or there’s just not gonna be anything left of you. I’ll scrape you off.

The bridge comm crackles with a reply:

Voice: You won’t get far.
Nika: Watch me.

Braced for a rough departure, Arden quips from the deck:

Arden: It seemed so simple. Two passengers.
Nika: Five. Four. Three.

In the tube aft of the bridge, Kiera sees the sparks stop. Joshua calls it back.

Joshua: The sparks have stopped.

Nika’s completely focused.

Nika: Two. One.

There’s a scrape and a jolt and the shuttle on our hull goes away. Nika pulls on the yoke, pours on the speed, and flies us the hell off our pad. As we leave Parker Strip Station, the tactical sensors on the bridge start yarking.

Computer voice: Targeting computer is locked on our vessel. Dìngwèi de diànnǎo bèi suǒdìng zài wǒmen de chuan. Targeting computer is locked on our vessel. Dìngwèi de diànnǎo bèi suǒdìng zài wǒmen de chuan.

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