Editing Episode 302: Turning on a Dime

The container we’re in is like the ones on the Gift, with the containers there sporting two doors along the sides.  We’ve just found one of them and since it’s the container centered in the group of six on this level, there must be a container on the other side of the door we can get into.  And by going through the linked containers we can get out of here.  We waste no more time on the lock—we get that container door open and stumble into the container beyond.<br />

And that’s when the bargaining starts.  We know from the other crew we’ve captured and from the activities we’ve directly witnessed that the Borderland has money. We bargain for it, saying if they hand over the money, we won’t turn them in as slavers, and we’ll call it square.  The Captain says his lockbox is in his quarters.  Arden and Joshua follow him there, watch as he kneels to reveal a built-in safe.  He starts fiddling with the locks and all of a sudden he closes his eyes.<br />

We get the hell off the Borderland Express. Right into the arms of station security, klaxons blaring.  They see our guns—especially Rick’s machine gun—and order us to stand down and drop our weapons. We immediately comply, point back the way we came and tell them about the slavers and their grenades and how they’re dangerous people and how we—<br />

Tall, blonde, and rangy, with a determined jaw and no-nonsense attitude, Stationmaster Dr. Vera ‘Doc’ Halloway strides right over to the docking console for the Borderland Express and hails the ship.<br />

Heh. Rina likes her already.  It’s refreshing to have someone take our side right off the bat.  The way she sees it-- from the security team's POV it doesn’t look good: explosions are heard aboard a ship, gunfire, and then you have a bunch of scared people running out and right after them come people with guns. In Rick's case, a big-assed gun. And the people with guns are saying, Hey! We're the good guys! The bad guys are back there!  <br />

Halloway’s no dummy.  She gets everyone to drop weapons and then she starts sorting the facts out.  She sends security onto the Borderland Express and one by one the crew is marched out, hands on heads.<br />

The Borderland crew say nothing.<br />

'''Nika:''' The Summer’s Gift.<br />

We thank her for everything, apologize for the chaos and make a quick exit.  And on the way back to the Gift, we start thinking about our windfall.  We can restock our small arms.  Heck, Rina says we can think bigger and fit our ship with the Express’s guns.  Why not? They’re fitted to containers, containers our ship is equipped to use.  They’re half containers to boot—we won’t lose out entirely on valuable cargo space after we put the guns on. And since we’re taking Faria to Blue Sun, it’s best to go armed.<br />

We debate the idea of selling the ship but we don’t have a way to find buyers or even alerting Christian we have it to sell.  Joshua mentions that we could just have Marie and Annie take the ship and fly the freed slaver victims back to the Core.  Rick says the Express has food stores we can raid and still leave enough aboard to accommodate the mercy mission. Arden wants to know what’s in the lockbox in the Captain’s quarters.  Nika agrees we can take just what we need and ask the freed slaver victims if they want a ride back to the Core.<br />

Interviewing them we find that they have no ship personnel, no engineers or pilots among them.  Instead they have models, gamblers, a chemist, a banker, a couple of technical people, some doctors, a couple of independently wealthy people.  And they tell us that they’d been told different stories by the slavers.  The ones with trade skills were told they would be sold into indentured servitude for their skills, with the promise of earning their way free of their bond.  The others, the models and good looking prisoners, were not exactly told of their intended fate in the sex trade, but they had little hope for a different outcome.  The aristocracy—the independently wealthy prisoners—they were treated all right at first.  But then talk amongst their captors about ‘payback’ led to their being made to do all sorts of menial chores, with more unpleasant work threatening in the future.  There was also talk of being ransomed.  However, the lack of Cortex was making it hard for the kidnappers to make their bid for ransom known to interested parties, and the prisoners were using this opportunity to try to negotiate their own escape.  So the Borderland Express was trafficking in more than just the sex trade.  They were spinning every angle: offering jobs as servers, domestics, you name it.  <br />

While some of us are interviewing the freed victims, Arden is going through the Captain’s quarters looking for any logs, journals, papers…basically anything that can tell us what happened to the Express before it docked here.  Going through the navigational data, Arden discovers the original crew flew the Express out of Bellerophon to Persephone, then were slated to fly out to Paquin.  They were intercepted outside Persephone.  He finds out the slavers’ plan was to fly the Express to New Kasmir and there were several Cortex messages to random people to that planet, though no record of the contents remain.  It appears they were independent operators, not linked to a larger network of wrongdoers.  The impression is the pirates that took the Express weren’t pirates for long, but were simply taking advantage of the opportunity to do so.<br />

Asking the people we’d freed where they want to go, their response is to go back to the Core.  We decide to find someone to take them back to the Core on the Express, filling the needful crew positions from our passengers if possible and in return, the passengers will pay for their passage when they arrive.  With the Cortex down there is no way they can verify their identity, much less access their bank accounts, but home in the Core, they could transact the necessary business in person.  Payment is possible, it’s just delayed.  Of course, if any of the passengers decide to become permanent crew, they will be offered shares in the ship as employees of Morningstar. <br />

Joshua says he trusts Marie more than any happen-chance stranger we could find at the Station to fly the Express.  The crew has noticed as well that Annie has changed her attitude toward us, now that the reality of Jack’s betrayal of her has sunk in.  Rick states he trusts Marie as well.  After all, he’s sleeping with her and she hasn’t killed him yet.<br />

While Marie doesn’t answer right away in the affirmative, the read Rick gets off her is she’s not entirely willing to cut all ties with him….which might bode well for her taking over the Express as a ship in the Morningstar fleet.  And Marie clinches the deal by agreeing to it: she’ll take the prisoners to the Core.  When she arrives, we’ll give her our contact information for Christian and our flight plan.<br />

The next two days are busy with setting up ownership and housekeeping of the Express and continuing repairs to the Gift.<br />

We take 158 days food off the Express for the Gift’s crew and her sole passenger and there is still enough food left over for everyone else flying back to the Core on the Express to make it without starving.  Say what you want about the slavers, they knew how to lay in supplies.<br />

Rina grabs the spare power converter off the Express and gets to restoring power to the Gift.  She also repairs the power and sewer coupling ports on our hull.  When we dock at our next port of call, it should be business as usual.<br />

Shepherd Faria’s worried about going on a ship that’s entirely unarmed.  Do we have access to weapons?  Rick says he’s got a light machine gun we can use, but he also assures him we have container mounted gun turrets at our disposal.  So, while the Gift came to Rockhaven unarmed, she’s leaving armed.  We’re taking one of the guns off the Express and mounting it to the Gift. We also restock our armory where it’s low from the Express’s arms locker and leave the rest onboard for the Express’s defense.<br />   

They rechristen the ship MeiMei, the little sister to Summer’s Gift.