Last Voyage of Delilah, Episode 208: Rats and Rat Catchers
Again, not as detailed as I like, but at least the episode's posted.—Maer
Air date: 17 Sep 2014
Present: Andy, Kim, Maer, Matt, and Terri
Thursday, 12 Sep 2525
Somewhere on Whitefall
Georgia (Huang Long) system
Mary Crow Dog tells Tian that David Spencer's unit killed her family … and she wants revenge. Mary throws the first punch and Tian defends herself. Tian quickly realizes that Mary needs to get this out of her system and Tian hunkers down to outlast the punches as best she can. When the fight is over, Mary is blowing hard and Tian is still alive, but unconscious.
Meanwhile, Valentine has no idea what's going on with Tian. In his defense, he's a bit busy overseeing cargo loading and take off. Jazz's cargo includes a valuable shipment of guns and all of it is transferred to Delilah.
Jazz wants to go to Athens to find a buyer for that cargo and Valentine agrees to take her there but before we can get a firm departure time worked out, Mary Crow Dog comms Delilah for pick-up. Valentine checks with Poco: Are we repaired enough to fly? Yeah. Good, spin her up.
We take off for the cabin.
We're skimming along a dry lakebed and flying under the Fed radar when we get a squeal from our sensors: someone's painting us with radar … and we've five SAMs incoming. Valentine barely has time to warn the crew to hang on before Rachel jinks us hard aside. To no avail: all five missiles hit us in varying degrees of success.
We falter and lose altitude. Rachel manages to get us on the ground in one piece. We're on fire. We extinguish the flames and take stock.
We can fix the damage … eventually. We can get the parts we need from Icarus but until we're fixed up, we're not spaceworthy.
Icarus is an hour and a half shuttle's flight back the way we came. Mary Crow Dog and Tian are an hour and a half shuttle's flight ahead of us. Either way is a 3 hour round trip. Can we afford to delay 3 hours on one task, for a total of 6 hours minimum to complete two? Regardless, which do we tackle first?
Valentine doesn't like splitting up the party. He decides to shuttle everyone to Icarus to scav the parts we need, then fly back. Poco puts a live hand comm next to our proximity sensors on Delilah's bridge. If it goes off while we're away, we'll hear it over our comms. We set the channels, lock the doors, and head off. Aboard the shuttle, Caliban curls up in a tight little ball. Nuri curls up with him and pats him reassuringly. Once we land at the crash site, we spread out to get those parts.
Vikki gets scalded by a bursting pipe during the hunt. It's a caustic chemical burn and though she douses herself with her water bottle, it's not enough to neutralize it completely. Tian isn't here to treat her and they've limited supplies in the shuttle. Vikki uses what she can from the small med kit aboard and goes back to work.
Valentine finds a map of the area on a flashdrive of Van's, useful for plotting his approach to the pick-up site, and he takes it with him.
Poco finds the parts we need to fix Delilah, but they won't fit. We fly back in defeat. Mary Crow Dog is pissed that we're not at the cabin to pick her up. Without going into too many details, Valentine tells her that we'll be there. He'll just take the shuttle and get her.
Jazz offers to help Valentine and frustrated, he accepts her offer. She tells him that Caliban can help with repairs, as he's really strong, but you need to make sure he knows what you need him to do.
Jazz flies the shuttle and plugs in Van's flashdrive map. Yup. That no-fly zone the Feds have put up shows immediately on the map. They avoid that area and Jazz lands at the cabin where Val's left Tian.
Mary Crow Dog walks out to greet Valentine and takes him inside to Tian. Tian is unconscious and Valentine starts a slow burn. He can see she's been beaten, plain as day. Mary Crow Dog revives her by splashing water on her face. While Valentine makes sure she's okay, Mary Crow Dog goes outside to tell Jazz where they all need to go.
As Jazz is looking to sell her guns, Valentine offers to take the gun shipment to Red Cloud, the insurgent leader. The guns would put money in Jazz's pocket once they're sold but as a way of gaining good will toward David Spencer's release, they're priceless.
Jazz agrees.
Okay then.
The three of them fly back to Delilah. Once there, Valentine takes Tian aside to brief her in private on what's happened while she was gone, especially everything that seems to be going on with Nuri. Tian goes immediately out again to see Nuri for herself.
She finds her with Caliban and they are both working on some wiring for the ship. As she watches, she sees Caliban pull one wire and Nuri pull another one right after it. Their work is seamlessly flowing together, almost as if from one mind.
Weird!
Tian gently asks Nuri how she's feeling and that she'd like to scan her to make sure she's okay. Caliban inserts himself into the conversation, obviously suspicious of Tian's motives. He pretty much tells Tian that he doesn't trust doctors, that they're always scanning and experimenting on people and he doesn't want that happening to Nuri. Tian assures him that she's not that sort, and that she can wait on the scan as long as Nuri feels all right.
She exits.
Tian goes right back to Valentine to report what she's seen, that whole Hive-mind thing going on really creeps her out. Valentine nods and finishes briefing her on events and then they break off so Tian can treat all the injured aboard.
As if he had a prayer of stopping her once she knew they were hurt … Yeah, right.
While she's off doing that, Valentine goes to Poco to hammer out some details: Jazz's guns. We'll have to buy them. We rescued Jazz and her crew, so that's worth a percentage of their cargo … So he and Poco work out the numbers.
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Poco comes up with a plan. Valentine takes it to Jazz. We have someone to sell her guns to. We will sell our half of the guns as leverage to release Tian's son. Jazz is free to bargain as high as she wants with her half to get as much as she can out of the rebels, but we're using our half to get Tian's son back.
Jazz isn't thrilled with the idea. She's already out a ship. Thanks to our scavving parts to repair our girl, Jazz is even out the salvage value of her own ship. Of course, getting off planet to find a buyer for the salvageable parts for her ship is not something she can do without us either, but still … she's taking losses all around: crew, cargo, ship, salvage.
Poco is quick to point out that she's got less people to divvy out her profits to. And Rachel points out that we did save her life.
Jazz counteroffers: sell our share of the guns at 30% off her asking price and she gets the rest for the rest.
Valentine is willing to do it if it gets Tian's son back.
Jazz is afraid that the rebels will just take all the guns without paying for them.
Valentine calls it: So? And the solution to that would be? How would we prevent that from happening.
Poco states the obvious: Don't bring the guns to the meeting. We'll just bring a few as a sample but by no means will we bring our entire shipment of four crates of guns.
We end up burying the guns (and Chel) for safe keeping and we mark the coordinates so we can find them later.
Once we've secured our interests, Poco goes back to making repairs. He finds out several instances where Delilah was repaired incorrectly but there is no time to reverse the botches completely. It would take weeks to repair back to normal and we'd have to be on the ground when we do it. Given we haven't got weeks to spare at the moment, he can only fix things back to a point where we can get the current job done. The mistakes are duly noted on his never-ending repairs list, and he carries on.
Friday, 13 Sep 2525
We lift off the next morning to the meeting Mary Crow Dog's arranged with the insurgents. We skirt the no-fly zone to a dry lake bed. Mary Crow Dog tells Rachel to land there. We will go the rest of the way via land. We arm up and bring water for the trip. The entire crew goes along and we take the flatbed mule.
It's a fair long ways out. We cross the lake bed and then leave it on the far side and enter a canyon crowded with wind-eroded pillars and massive columns. Voodoo Towers, it's called, and it's a tight fit for the flatbed mule. Several of the crew are injured, however, and they ride the mule while the rest of the crew walks.
The path through the canon has us pass skeletons tied to the spires of rock. They've all been headshot. Have they been tied up there as a warning or as a trophy? There is no telling.
The heat is punishing. Vikki and Rachel become hot and tired and dehydrated. Caliban's hands are no longer working properly. Nevertheless we push on. We walk all day and into the evening. Mary Crow Dog finally brings the party to a stop, saying that we'll lay up here for the night.
Tian things we're being paced on the heights by mounted watchers. Mary Crow Dog agrees, saying she's not sure if it's her own people or not. As a result, we all sit watches through the night and we break camp shortly before dawn. The crew trudges on before taking a break at midday.
And that's when Valentine notices that Vikki is missing.
Ooops.
He tells the others to keep going. He'll backtrack to find Vikki. He leaves, they go.
And it's not long after that that men with rifles literally step out of the canone walls. They speak an unfamiliar language. Well, unfamiliar to the crew. Mary Crow Dog doesn't seem to have any trouble with it and goes out to meet them. Two of the men are dispatched to find Valentine and Vikki. The rest are taken to a blessedly dark and cool cave, kitted out with boards for walking on and jennies for power.
Once they are well inside and their escape is cut off, they're given water and a chance to rest.
Red Cloud approaches and asks for Grace Tian. Tian offers weapons in trade for her son. Red Cloud agrees to listen.
Negotiations ensue.
An agreement is reached: all the guns are at a discount for Tian's son … and her son only. No one else in his unit will go free.
Poco perseveres and Red Cloud counteroffers: Tian's son and two others, but no money at all for the guns OR take 10 thousand for all the guns and get only Tian's son back.
Poco counteroffers the counteroffer: Tian treats Red Cloud's wounded and we get David, two others, and the 10K.
And so it goes …
Meanwhile, Valentine finds Vikki's messenger bag in the dust. She carries it with her everywhere but she is nowhere to be seen. Looking inside it, he finds a note written on a page torn out of one of her notebooks. It's not written in her hand. It says: Climb out of the canyon to the south."
Valentine goes south … and walks into the sound of guns warming up.
Patience and 6 mounted, armed men come out of hiding. They've a wagon behind them and in it, Valentine finds Vikki. She's tied up but she's alive. Patience says she rescued the girl and in return for giving her back to Valentine, Patience wants him to lead her to the insurgents. They've set up in her canyon without her permission, she explains, and she doesn't like squatters angering the Feds, with whom she's got a nice little arrangement going.
Valentine tells her he doesn't know where they are. It's the truth—he turned back before the rest of the crew were taken by the insurgents. Patience isn't pleased. She throws him in the wagon with Vikki. The posse drives them all to 2 dozen more of Patience's men.
Looks like the cavalry's here.
Back at Red Cloud's base, Red Cloud agrees to Poco's counteroffer of medical treatment. The leader takes Tian to where he's holding the prisoners. There are fifteen of them. They've been stripped of their armor and weapons. They aren't bound but it doesn't seem necessary. To a man, they're all subdued, perhaps even demoralized.
David Spencer is there. He's shocked to see his mother but hides it and doesn't let on he knows her. Red Cloud calls him out by name and tells him that he's been ransomed.David Spencer respectfully refuses to go.Red Cloud tells him that's not the way it works: his mother doesn't want him shipped home in a body bag.The squad Lieutenant orders David to go. David reluctantly agrees and leaves with Tian. She and her son rejoin the party.
Before they get too far, an alert by one of Red cloud's men draws Red Cloud away. They've incoming bogies and he has to see to dealing with them.
Tian's left alone with her son and she shows him her ace in the hole: this entire time she's been carrying a coordinate mapper. It has the location of the cave nailed. She gives him the device so he can come back for the rest of his squad.
David wasn't expecting this but he's not sure he can trust her, either. Everything he's seen, everything he's been told makes him believe she really is a traitor but … would a traitor risk everything to get him out? If she's gone over the wall, why would she take him away from the people she's supposed to be allied with? Why not leave him with Red Cloud and the rebels? They talk and she tries to explain, when …
BOOM!
The entire cave shudders.
Mary Crow Dog runs to them and announces that an army has found them.
That army, by the way, is Patience and her two dozen. Vikki and Valentine are still tied up in the wagon at the rear of the "army". The wagon has a mortar gun mounted on it and Patience is going to bombard them out of the cave with it.
But first, she parlays. She gets a bullhorn and calls out to the cave entrance that her people have surrounded.
Come out, no weapons, and she'll let them live.
No one comes out. Not that Patience expected otherwise. She motions her men to action.
Inside the cave, Red Cloud orders a staggered evacuation out the rear entrance of the caves, 12 men per turn. Our crew is grouped together and led out. The way is twisty and turny and tight in places but eventually, the evacuees see the light at the end of the tunnel. The rebels hold back and tell the crew to go first. Poco is first out, sneaking as best he can. He gets shot—bang!—by one of Patience's men.
Gorammit!
Looks like they know about the back door, y'all. Poco dives for cover back in the tunnel and takes a cautious peek around. He sees a glint up on the heights. He also sees his cigarettes lying in the dirt outside. He's caught in a tunnel with rebels, there's snipers on the heights shooting anything that moves, and he's likely gonna die …
Gorrammit!
He lunges for the cigarettes and the rest of the crew haul him back inside before he can get killed. Poco tries to fight them off. A bullet in the head is preferable to suffering nicotine withdrawal. Tian tells him to settle down, treats his wound, and orders the rebels behind her to take out the snipers.
Meanwhile, Valentine observes Patience's men rolling out a barrel of poison gas that they will unleash on the rebels. They're going to roll it right out and drop it right in front of the cave's entrance. Gas everyone out or gas them dead.
Valentine takes a careful look around. No one is watching them in the wagon. Only a single guard is with them and he's holding onto the wagon horses' reins. Not paying Valentine or Vikki any attention at all. All eyes are on the drama about to unfold at the cave entrance.
Valentine orders Vikki to make a distraction. Her bag was thrown into the wagon with them and her hands, unlike Valentine's, are tied in front of her. She quickly makes a dart gun out of a fountain pen and shoots Patience's horse in the rear end.
Equine chaos ensues.
Valentine hops onto one of the horses hitched to the wagon and kicks the horse into running. He was raised on a ranch and he knows how to ride bareback, even with his hands tied behind his back. The wagon goes bouncing off over the rough terrain but he keeps his seat and Vikki stays aboard.
Of course, the shooting starts when people realize he's making a break for it. A bullet wings him but he stays on the horse.
Back at the cave, Poco's badly shaken. Rachel bums a cigarette off one of the rebels and gives it to Poco. He takes a deep drag and his nerves steady.
Three of the rebels throw grenades out into the open and rush out before the snipers can regroup. Or at least, that was the plan. Shots are fired and when the smoke clears, the three rebels are dead or down.
They're all fish in a barrel to those snipers.
Tian rushes forward to help them. The rest of the Lakota rebel squad try to stop her. She powers through on her military command voice—she's a combat medic and running under fire is nothing new to her.
Meanwhile, back with the posse ….
Valentine has gained some distance from Patience's men and he yells at Vikki to fire the mortar gun on their wagon at the posse.
BOOM!
Vikki manages to fire off a round. Patience and her men are dumped to the ground as their horses go ape shit.
As the chaos continues, a ship paints a contrail across the sky and disappears … leaving dark objects in its wake drifting down … down … down … And down to an uncertain purpose, with unknown intentions and consequences.
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